The original Boglin Marsh, back in 1999, carried this sentiment: "Welcome to Spinksy's world; feel free to submit your sites and ideas, and then we will do our best to satisfy your requirements. You are all welcome to submit articles or news snippets."
That invitation still stands. It is the reason the site existed in the first place, and it is open again.
Why I am asking
The directory side of Boglin Marsh is links. Useful, but anybody could compile it given enough evenings.
The part that cannot be replaced is what fanciers know.
My dad's articles survived twenty-five years because he wrote them down and somebody archived the site. Almost nothing else from that generation did. The men and women who taught him, the lofts they kept, and the way they fed and raced and bred – most of that went with them and was never written anywhere.
That is happening again right now, and faster. Every year the sport loses people who have kept birds for fifty or sixty years, and what they know goes with them unless somebody writes it down.
I would rather Boglin Marsh be the place it got written down.
What I am after
Anything a fancier would want to read. To give you a starting point:
How you feed, and why you changed it
Loft design, ventilation, what you got wrong and what you fixed
Race reports and how a season actually went, including the bad ones
Breeding: a family of birds you built, how you selected, what you kept
Widowhood, natural, roundabout: what works for you and what does not
Health, and dealing with the vet
Training and road work
Club and federation history, before it is lost
Tributes to fanciers who have passed
Advice for novices, and what you wish somebody had told you at the start
One-loft racing, showing, young bird sickness, transport, timing kit
Old material is welcome too. If you wrote for the fancy press years ago and you still have the pieces, they can go up here with the original date on them.
Do not overthink it
This is the part I most want you to read.
You do not need to be a writer. You do not need to worry about spelling, grammar or how it is laid out. That is my job, and I do not mind doing it. If you can tell it in the club on a Saturday night, you can tell it here.
Length does not matter either. Three hundred words about one bird is worth more than three thousand words of general advice.
Photographs are welcome, including old ones. A photograph of a loft from 1975 is worth having on its own.
And if writing is not your thing at all, just drop me a line via the contact form instead. I am happy to write it up and send it back for you to check before anything goes near the site.
What happens to it
Your name goes on it, with an author profile of your own. If you run a loft, a club or a business, that gets a link.
You keep it. Publishing here does not stop you using it anywhere else, and if you want it taken down later, say so, and it comes down. No argument.
I edit for typos and layout. If anything needs changing beyond that, I will ask you first. Nothing gets published in your name that you have not seen.
You can submit your articles and news for free; there are no charges for this. I only charge for sponsored directory listings, and I will endeavour to get any submitted articles published as soon as possible.
What I will not publish
Adverts dressed up as articles. If you sell something, you are welcome to be listed in the directory, and you are welcome to write a proper article, but not both in the same piece.
Anything written by a machine or AI. There is a lot of it about now, and "AI slop" is worthless here. The entire point of this is that a person who keeps pigeons wrote it.
Attacks on named individuals. Disagreement about methods is the lifeblood of the sport, and I will happily publish a piece that argues with another one. Going after people is different.
How to send it
Use the form: Write for Us
Or contact me directly: Contact
