Write Out Loud has just notched up its 100^th new member this year, marking a record rate of membership growth, and a record number of new recruits for any one month as well, WOL’s membership supremo, Winston Plowes, reports. Our 100^th new member this year, Sharon Larkin, comes from Gloucestershire. She said: “WOL was drawn to my attention by a fellow poet, specifically to a blog item related to a poetry group I belong to.  I wanted to reply to the item so that was the immediate prompt for me to join.  However, having looked around a bit more, I notice lots of poets and groups I am already familiar with and can't believe it has taken me so long to join!  I think the gigs calendar is a wonderful resource - and have already decided to visit a couple of events advertised there.  I'm also thinking that one of the groups I belong to needs to advertise its workshops and talent nights on there, so will have a chat with the leadership about that.”

Sharon added: “As you may have detected from my profile, I am an unrepentant bridge-builder.  What most WOL members must surely share is a love of poetry and conviction of its communicative power - whether the audience reads it or hears it read (or recited, or sung, or chanted, or rapped ...)  We are fortunate in having a strong poetry fraternity locally and I try to get involved in as many groups as possible, intent on breaking down walls that keep poets in ghettos.  Whether performance or page, rhyming or not, lyric or rant, cerebral or from the gut, rooted in history or born of the here and now - good poetry is good poetry.” 

Winston said: "Here at membership central things have never been busier, with no less than 20 new members joining the Write Out Loud community in July alone (a record number for any single month). So nice to see all these new faces and especially Sharon's as our 100th in 2011. You can access all these new members' profiles via the tag 'new members'."

The previous month, June, was a record month for the number of unique users on WOL.