You Are Not Your URL

I was talking with a friend last week about good resources for writers. I directed her toward my usual go-to sites, like Poets & Writers, Writer’s Digest, and for those of us looking to submit shorter works for publication: NewPages.com.

She in turn introduced me to a few writer websites that are pretty awesome. My favorites right now are “Sage Said So,” the site for Sage Cohen, and Rosetta Thurman’s self titled website. I like to look at these two sites side by side. Sage is a poet with an impressive publication list, and Rosetta is a blogger writing about social change. I’m fascinated by how their websites seem to totally match their personas.

At the New York Summer Writer’s Institute I met a young man who engages in none of this kind of self promotion. He’s not even on Facebook. While I admire that sort of literary homesteading, I personally hope to give myself every advantage in growing my career as a writer, and so I need a kick ass site. Every time I look at Sage and Rosetta’s sites I get to thinking.

Is it time to revamp my site? What kind of site design says “April Dávila”? Right about then I hear a Brad-Pitt-In-Fight-Club like voice in my head laughing and saying something along the lines of “you are not your URL.”

Still, I can’t help but click over to my site and think about what colors would better represent me, what fonts would more adequately help people know who I am. Silly? Yes. A necessary part of being a creative individual in the modern age? Also yes.