History

In August of 1999, Kyra Davies and Anisa Schardl decided to write a book, with each writing alternating chapters and with a subject matter, as they stated, of "anything, everything, and nothing." Deviating from the Cultural Norm was thus born. Kyra designed the title page, Anisa wrote the first chapter (Chapter 1: The First Chapter), and they went from there.

They soon decided that Deviating wasn't a job for two people. Soon the first contribution, Ting Ting Fu's Chapter 24: The Cultural Norm, was added, and the list of contributors grew.

The first version of the Deviating website was hosted at the now-defunct Math, Science and Technology Center server, and was also Kyra's first effort at webpages in general. Since then it has moved to various different free hosts until Anisa bought the domain deviating.org in the summer of 2002.

Submitting a Chapter

Chapters of Deviating, you may have noticed, differ in almost every possible way way: in matters of format, length, content, style, and font, among others. What are the criteria for a Deviating chapter? There are very few.

We do ask that you not be overly obscene or vulgar. We are not a porn site. Really. We don't accept anything specifically attacking certain groups. As we no longer plan to publish the book in any other format besides online, we now do accept mentions of copyrighted material. However, we are not a fanfiction site, and there are most likely better places to host writing of that nature (we'll host it right on the domain if you want, just not on the Deviating part of it). Also, we fully endorse having political opinions and expressing them, but we want to try to avoid ranting about specific issues or candidates. There are other sites that would better address these causes and that are in fact entirely devoted to them.

You can submit art, quizzes, etc. as well as traditional prose and poetry. If you have a question about whether what you want to submit is appropriate, email deviating@deviating.org.

The Site

Anyone may post on the message board, but we reserve the right to delete posts that we feel are deliberately spamming or trolling.

By the same token, anyone can have a deviating.org email address just by emailing us. There are several options.

• A POP3 and forwarding email address. This will allow you to receive email both by using a POP3 account or by checking your email on the Web, and also to forward all your email at this address to another email. You are you@deviating.org.
• A POP3 address only. You can check your mail using a POP3 account. You're still you@deviating.org.
• A forwarding email addess only. You can receive messages forwarded to you, but you can't reply to them. Still you@deviating.org.
• A webmail address only. Using this option will give you a superior web mailbox with more options than the other web mailbox has. Your address is you@deviating.every1.net. This is powered by everyone.net. You can sign up for this one yourself here.

This site was entirely hand coded in Notepad and WordPad by Kyra Davies. Chapter 5 is hosted by Quizilla. Thanks also to SiteMeter. Deviating from the Cultural Norm is hosted on deviating.org due to the efforts of 23webmasters.com.

Questions? Comments? Typos, misspellings, or broken links? Interpretive dances? Email deviating@deviating.org.