Dear Ben,

Thank you so very much for creating Apricotpie.com. I have grown into a new person through this site. I have made friends almost closer than the ones I’ve been close to my entire life in person, and matured in my writing more than through anything else. I have become a poet when I thought I was not and I have fallen in love with writing more than ever before.

I consider my first online friend to be Old Fashioned Girl who is now called Ariel; she was interested in a story that I wasn’t going to continue and she commented encouraging me to do just that. In response, I e-mailed her and we started a correspondence.

After becoming friends with OFGI joined the forum that was started because of Apricotpie.com and that I would never had joined without Apricotpie.com. The forum is where I became close to so many. Only one person that I became close to was not a member of the original site. When I went through a tough time I told some people about it and that gave me the courage to tell my best friends out in the “real world.” I can tell Bridget my fears and she prays for me. That means a ton. I can tell Renee, Alicia, Ariel, The Brit and Bridget nothing and they will pray for me. That means even more.

I have kept everything I ever posted on my page to see my own progress. Even though it makes me cringe to read over the very first things I have up, I can see that the critique and encouragement I receive helps. Before Apricotpie, I actually took constructive criticism personally and now I take it personally and am grateful that someone cares enough to help me become better.

Before Apricotpie, the only way I had to share my writing was to print out a copy and to ask someone to read it. With this site I am able to put up what I have and if people feel like it they will read it and I am glad not be begging people to read my work.

When I was rather young I thought writing up something in which the first line was always capitalized was poetry. When I found it wasn’t, I stopped writing it. After I stopped writing those odd little compositions, I was done with poetry and thought that I couldn’t write poetry. Then I started reading the poems of others on Apricotpie and began writing some of my own. Now I love my poetry. Without Apricotpie I might not have my solace that is poetry.

I know this is a rough and quick overview of the immense impact Apricotpie has had upon my life. I just want to thank you for coming up with the idea, executing it, and working to make it better. I honestly believe that I would be a different person without it. Thank you very much Mr. Kniaz.

Sincerely,

Keri T.