One of my favorite things about working the reference desk is having conversations with the many patrons that I see on a day-to-day basis. One of my go-to questions to ask people is “What is your new favorite thing to do?” Well, today’s blog post centers around one of the answers I received a week or so ago. One of the younger patrons I was helping mentioned that his favorite thing to do when he doesn’t have a book to read and hasn’t had time to make it to the library is to use Wattpad. Naturally my curiosity was piqued as I had never heard of Wattpad before and I wanted to know just what this was that he uses when he couldn’t make it to the library.

Wattpad is an online writing community composed of never before published writers, already published writers, and people who are just looking for a place to write down their thoughts. This can be accessed either online or by downloading the Wattpad app. On a long car ride, I spent a few hours playing around in the app and discovered a few interesting tidbits. This app does not have an age limit and the content can be anything, from fanfiction to any genre you can think of, so be sure to read the blurb presented with each story before opening and reading it. Wattpad allows you to comment on the stories that you read and to follow the authors that you like, so you can be alerted when they publish something new. You can read anything from published works to works-in-progress. Join groups of people who write things similar to yourself or stories that you like to read. Vote for the stories you like to win different awards. If you’re feeling brave, you can also write and put your own work online for other people to read. All in all, Wattpad is fast becoming one of my favorite apps to play with when I’m looking for inspiration and don’t want to carry a book around with me. Try it out and let me know what you think!