Word Oysters is a free, volunteer-run magazine publishing the creative writing of young, home educated, writers Australia-wide. Until recently, the magazine ran on a free WordPress plan. Just as I’m about to publish Issue 2, WordPress has introduced ads on their free sites, and these ads are popping up everywhere in the magazine, including throughout the students’ writing.

To remove the ads, Word Oysters needs to upgrade to a $72/year plan. It’s a small amount, but as a single parent running the magazine voluntarily by myself, it’s a stretch. I have managed to pay the $72 annual fee myself to cover the next 12 months and keep the magazine free from adverts, but this isn’t something I can continue to do alone.

Any support you can offer, whether financial or simply by sharing this call, will help me keep the magazine ad-free and respectful of young writers’ work. I would value any contribution to help me pay the fee now and in the years to come, however small.

Contribute here to keep Word Oysters ad-free.

Word Oysters was created as a calm, thoughtful publishing space for young writers: a place where their words could be read without distraction, interruption, or commercial noise.

I honestly cannot tolerate a magazine where students’ stories are surrounded by pop-ups and commercial clutter, breaking up poems and stories, illustrations, and carefully edited and designed web pages.

Even the smallest contribution will help me maintain Word Oysters magazine as an ad-free space where students’ writing can be read as it deserves to be read.

If you would like to support the magazine, or know of a small funding pathway that might suit a project like this, I’d love to hear from you. You can email me at wordoyster@protonmail.com

Thank you for reading, and for caring about our young writers.

Suzy Gordon
Editor, Word Oysters