Facts, words and files about Unsolicited Musings, for anyone writing about the club or the Magazine. Use anything here as it stands; it is all checked against the site.
A free online creative writing club with a monthly magazine.
How it works
One word goes up on the 1st of the month. Members have the full month to write to it: prose, poetry, or a Thumb Story of up to 160 characters. The month after, everyone reads everyone with the names off, the editors choose a handful of pieces, and the members elect one Club's Choice. Those come out together as an issue of the Magazine, free for anyone to read.
Cost
Free. No fees, no submission charges, nothing sold. Members and readers can leave a tip; nobody has to.
Rights
Writers keep every right. Nothing goes into the Magazine without the writer's consent, piece by piece, under the byline they choose.
Running since
January 2026, privately. 90+ submissions, 90,000+ words.
Opens to new members
1 December 2026. Applications are open now; everyone accepted before then comes in on the morning of the 1st, when the next word goes up. From December, applications are approved as they arrive.
Issue one
31 January 2027, at unsolicitedmusings.ink. Then a new issue at the end of every month.
How to apply
Two lines at unsolicitedmusings.org: a Thumb Story (up to 160 characters) to a word the site gives you, and what you're reading right now. Or an invite code from an existing member.
Who can join
Anyone 18 or over, writing in English, anywhere in the world.
House rules
No like counts, no followers, no rankings, no algorithm. Pieces are read blind while an issue is open. Writers decide how they're credited.
On AI
Neither for the writing nor the illustrations. Every piece is written by a person, and writers confirm the work is their own each time they submit. Every illustration is made by a person too. AI can fix a comma; it can't write the piece.
Where
Run from Australia. Members anywhere.
Founder
Gus Jacquier.
The Magazine
Online, with a PDF and an ePub of every issue to download.
Unsolicited Musings is a free online creative writing club: one word a month, everyone writes to it, and the best of each month comes out in a magazine anyone can read.
Fifty words
Unsolicited Musings is a free writing club built on a monthly prompt. One word goes up on the 1st; members write to it — prose, poetry, or a Thumb Story — and read each other blind. The editors' picks and one Club's Choice become an issue of the Magazine, free online.
A hundred words
Unsolicited Musings is a creative writing club and the magazine it makes. On the first of every month one prompt word goes up, and members have the full month to write to it: prose, poetry, or a Thumb Story of up to 160 characters. The month after, everyone reads everyone with the names off, the editors choose a handful of pieces and the members elect one Club's Choice, and those come out together, free, at unsolicitedmusings.ink. It costs nothing, there are no feeds and no algorithm, and writers keep every right. Applications are open at unsolicitedmusings.org.
In a sentence, from the founder
“A writing resolution at the end of 2025 turned into nearly a hundred finished pieces in 2026; 2027 is what happens when you open the door wide.”
Press release
Monday 12 October 2026
A writing club that ran as a group chat for a year opens its door
Unsolicited Musings, a free online creative writing club built on one word a month, is taking new members for the first time. Applications are open at unsolicitedmusings.org; the first new members come in on 1 December, the morning the first word for 2027 goes up.
The club has run privately since January 2026: one prompt word a month, a piece or two from each writer by the end of it, and nothing published outside the club. From December it opens to anyone 18 or over writing in English, and from 31 January 2027 the best of each month comes out as an issue of its Magazine, free to read at unsolicitedmusings.ink.
The rules are few. Everyone writes to the same word. Everyone reads everyone with the names off. Every piece is written by a person, not by AI. There are no like counts, followers, rankings or feeds, and nothing is sold. The editors choose a handful of pieces and the members elect one Club's Choice; writers keep every right and decide, piece by piece, how they are credited and whether a piece runs at all.
The application is two lines: a Thumb Story — a complete story in 160 characters or fewer — written to a word the site gives you, and what you're reading right now.
“A writing resolution at the end of 2025 turned into nearly a hundred finished pieces in 2026; 2027 is what happens when you open the door wide,” said Gus Jacquier, founder of Unsolicited Musings.
About
Unsolicited Musings is a creative writing club and the magazine it makes. On the first of every month one prompt word goes up, and members have the full month to write to it: prose, poetry, or a Thumb Story of up to 160 characters. The month after, everyone reads everyone with the names off, the editors choose a handful of pieces and the members elect one Club's Choice, and those come out together, free, at unsolicitedmusings.ink. It began in January 2026 as a group chat among a handful of friends (and friends of friends) who wanted to write more, more consistently. It costs nothing, there are no feeds and no algorithm, and writers keep every right. Applications are open at unsolicitedmusings.org.
In the folder
Everything is in one shared folder, free to use in anything written about the club.
Logos
SVG, PNG and PDF, for light and dark backgrounds. The two creatures stay dark with white eyes on any background; only the wordmark changes.
Fonts
Oswald for headlines and Literata for reading, both free under the Open Font License (licences included).
Colours
Ink #36322A, cream #FFFFFF, page #EDECE6, and a grey-to-ink gradient from #8B8478 to #363029. These stay the same. Everything else changes colour every month: each month, and the issue made from its word, has a gradient of its own.
Fact sheet
The facts above as a one-page A4 PDF, with the month in one picture, landscape and square.
Screenshots
The Workshop and the Magazine, on a desktop and a phone. The pieces and names in them are samples.
Illustrations
Drawings made for the club by Gus Jacquier. Please credit them to him.
Materials
The poster as a PDF to print and pin up (A3, and fine on A4), in two designs: GASP and LONG. The postcard and the bookmark as images, front and back.
Quotes
Lines from members' pieces, shared with their writers' permission.
Photography
Real photographs of the postcards, bookmarks and a sticker.
Cover mockups
The 2026 covers, all illustrated by Gus Jacquier, shown as printed booklets. They are mockups: the 2026 issues were PDFs and ePubs shared privately with members, and none was printed. Files named UM_Covers were made from the real cover files in Photoshop. Files named UM_AI_Covers are AI-generated scenes made from the real covers.
Getting it right
·The members' award is the Club's Choice: one piece per issue, elected by the members who wrote for it.
·The Magazine is online, with a PDF and an ePub of every issue. There is no printed edition.
·Each month's word stays with the members until its issue comes out.
·Writers are named by the byline they chose for that piece, which may be a pen name.
·Every piece is written by a person. The club's rule is that AI can fix a comma, not write the piece.
·It is not a city club: it is run from Australia, and its members are anywhere.
