Thanet Creative is starting a writers’ blog carnival. It is open to anyone who considers themselves a writer. You can take part pretty much anywhere you can freely post written content (like a blog, public forum, personal website, or federated social media (like Mastodon)).
What is a blog carnival?
A blog carnival is a monthly call for submissions where participants write a blog post and submit it for inclusion in the end-of-month summary post.
The carnival is often hosted on a different blog every month. This one will be no different.
Submission each month will primarily be via WebMention (or ActivityPub sometimes). Fear not, these are easy to use.
How do I take part in a carnival?
There are two things you need to do.
- Write whatever you wish on the theme
- Link to the theme announcement (host call for submissions)
That’s it. Then you just need to post that somewhere – a blog is the usual choice – and notify (submit to) the host. More on submitting below.
How to submit via WebMention (the easy choice)
Write your post remembering to link to the host’s call for submissions. If you are running WordPress and have the WebMention plugin installed, everything will be taken care of when you publish your post. It should (after a delay) appear as a comment linking back to your post.
If you don’t have any sort of WebMention thing set up on your blog, there is one extra step. Paste the link to your post in the ping form on the call for submissions. Depending on the host this step may very slightly.
How to submit via ActivityPub (the advanced choice)
Some hosts may support ActivityPub. If you do too, this is likely old news to you.
You will want a blog that supports ActivityPub or a Mastodon account. And you will want to check that your host also supports ActivityPub.
Write your post in your ActivityPub-enabled thing – blog, special CMS, Mastodon account in the form of a reply. The software should take care of the rest.
To find the post to reply to, follow the host and look in their recent posts tab. You can also post the link to the call for submissions into your Mastodon search box, find the syndicated post, and reply.
How to be a host
Get in touch with me via our Facebook, at a writers’ night, or add a bit at the end of a carnival entry saying you’d love to host, and the month you would like – I’ll probably see it.
Writer Talk Carnival: Hosts
2025 Hosts
| Month | Host | Theme | Summary |
|---|---|---|---|
| August 2025 | Thanet Creative (us) | Writing Tools & Style | |
| September 2025 | Shall We Talk | ||
| October 2025 | open | ||
| November 2025 | open | ||
| December 2025 | open |