...Especially if you're considering creating your own website or have connections in various fandoms. Here's the story---and this is going to be long, so I apologize in advance: I run an X-Files message board and have for over 8 years now. It's a tiny little message board, but it's peopled by some amazingly talented writers and exquisitely cultured readers, if I do say so myself. Recently it's come to their attention that Geocities, Yahoo!'s free site host, is shutting down. Not just going paid-only, but shutting down completely. Since many of the writers in the X-Files fandom host their fanfic on Geocities sites, this is A Very Bad Thing.

Enter one of the aforementioned amazingly talented writers: Xochiluvr. Who is also an amazingly talented webhost and all-around kick-ass guy. He's bent over backwards to find a way to host all of these soon-to-be-homeless sites through his own web service Surfacing.Website. Which is great all on its own, but really freaking fantastic when you consider what he's hoping to do with these free sites.

And this is where you come in. He wants Surfacing.Website to be the new *free* site location for art and artists, writers and designers. Not just X-Files artists and writers and designers, but those in all fandoms and those who create original works. So if you have any interest in creating a website to share your talent, please take a look at either the original post on my message board or Surfacing.Website, itself. And even if you don't intend to create a website of your own, please consider sharing this in your favorite fandoms or with other artists who might benefit from the information.

If you have any questions, I'll do my best to answer them, although I am not exactly as technically savvy as I'd like to be. I can definitely say, though, that I've known Xochiluvr for as long as I've been running this message board, and he is unfailingly ethical. (And entertaining and pervy, but that's several stories for another time.)