Sanctuary for Societies

Designed for universities & writing groups to build community, showcase stories, and grow their platform.

Set up a Society

Your Society. Your Writers. Your Archive.

We’re trying to discover the next generation of writers — and they’re in your community .

Each Society gets its own beautiful, hub. With our suite of bespoke features, you can build collections, publish anthologies, run competitions and grow your society’s profile.

Beyond the Workshop

Universities & writing groups have remarkable talent — but often, great stories are limited to a workshop audience. Societies on Sanctuary helps your writers share their work with family, friends, or a wider audience.

Sanctuary for Societies

Introducing Societies on Sanctuary — the new home for writing communities. Whether you’re a university club or a writing group, Societies gives your community a digital home for workshopping, running submissions, and building an audience.

  • One unified home for your publications — without losing any ownership or rights to your stories. Publish seasonal or themed collections, run writing competitions, and curate the best stories.

  • Join a network of writing societies across the world, each highlighting the work of their talented writers. Publish shareable collections, get readership, and raise your society’s profile.

  • Verified members of Societies get to skip the submissions queue entirely — you’re free to publish to Sanctuary’s readers without a review. We trust your judgement!

  • Some writers prefer their stories to stay low-key. That’s fine - on Societies, you can keep collections private or restricted to Society. If you want to find new readers, you can share new collections with ease.

Why set up a Society?

Password-protected

You control your membership and highlight the best work. Societies have full customisation and flexibility over privacy, collections, and competitions.

Get eyes on your work

We’re giving the next generation a route to readership. Help your writers get discovered, and publish shareable collections or anthologies.

Creative community

Sanctuary is home to Societies across the world. Raise the profile of your society, build a stellar reputation, and gain loyal readers.

Skip the Queue

Your members get free verified status — meaning that they can publish to the Sanctuary audience without a submission, and are eligible for the Edition.

Set up a Society

We’ll set up your Society for you so that you can start inviting members. Before we approve your Society, we’ll do a quick check to make sure it matches our criteria.

If your society fulfils one of these criteria:

  • Affiliated with a University, College or educational institution

  • Professionally organised or administered

  • A hub for writers in your local community

We’d be especially interested in hearing from you.

  • “Your intuition knows what to write, so get out of the way.”

    Ray Bradbury

  • “I love writing. I love the swirl and swing of words as they tangle with human emotions.”

    James Michener

  • "I wrote my first novel because I wanted to read it."

    Toni Morrison

  • “Be a sadist. No matter how sweet and innocent your leading characters, make awful things happen to them in order that the reader may see what they are made of.”

    Kurt Vonnegut