She put a notice on one of the AOL bulletin boards asking if anyone would be interested in forming a new critique club with a UK slant. The response was amazing. Within one month, over 100 people had joined the new group, not just from the UK, but from all over the world. The United Kingdom Transatlantic Critique Club was born. That's quite a mouthful. It was soon reduced to, and became known as, the UKTCC.

Amanda became an AOL guide, and the UKTCC had its own area within AOL's message boards. The group had its own chat room, the Writer's Pub, where regular hosted meetings took place, and eventually decided to launch its own magazine, Writers Cauldron.

At around the same time AOL underwent a reshuffle; the UK writers' area was closed and with it went Amanda's reason for being a guide. She lost the funding she needed to maintain the group (at that time there was no unmetered Internet access in the UK) and so was forced to give it up. She carried on with the magazine however, until recent ill-health forced its passing to a new owner at the end of 2002. It is now called The New Cauldron.

Meanwhile, back in the late '90's, the group left AOL behind. It went through an unsettled period, splintering into various smaller groups for short story writers, novelists, poets and non-fiction writers, all of which were run by different people. The other groups gradually fizzled out, but The Short Story Group survived and is here today, thriving, settled and growing, thanks to the committed and dedicated ownership and management of Stephen Rea.

The Short Story Group also has a busy and fun email chat group, started by Deb, and a permanent webmaster, Martin.

Internet writers' groups come and go. This is one of oldest. The members are committed writers who find the support they need amongst like-minded peers. Many have years of experience in the art of short story crafting, and all are willing to share that expertise with newcomers. Many more have been helped along the road to publication thanks to the level of critique help on offer.