Toasted Cheese is an online writing community that includes a literary magazine

Literary magazine

A literary magazine is a periodical devoted to literature in a broad sense. Literary magazines usually publish short stories, poetry and essays along with literary criticism, book reviews, biographical profiles of authors, interviews and letters...

, forums, articles and more. It was among Writer's Digest

Writer's Digest

Writer's Digest is an American magazine devoted to both beginning and established writers, offering interviews, market listings, calls for manuscripts, and how-to articles....

's Best 101 Websites for Writers in 2002, 2005 and 2006.

Toasted Cheese was founded January 18, 2001 by seven women: Theryn Fleming, Stephanie Lenz, Amanda Marlowe, Tawny McDonald, Erin Nappe, Lisa Olson and Suzanne Wiles-Chapman. The group met in the writing community at iVillage

IVillage

iVillage, Inc. is a media company that is owned by NBCUniversal. The site focuses on categories targeted at women, including Food, Health, Entertainment, Family, Beauty & Style. Additional businesses and brand extensions within iVillage Networks include iVillage UK, NBC Digital Health Network,...

, where some of them served as community leaders. When these community leaders were dismissed from their positions for giving critical feedback of posted work, the group formed their own community where writers could get honest feedback.

The name of the website and related aspects (the editors' nicknames, the forum titles, etc.) come from the Lewis Carroll

Lewis Carroll

Charles Lutwidge Dodgson , better known by the pseudonym Lewis Carroll , was an English author, mathematician, logician, Anglican deacon and photographer. His most famous writings are Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and its sequel Through the Looking-Glass, as well as the poems "The Hunting of the...

 poem "The Hunting of the Snark

The Hunting of the Snark

The Hunting of the Snark is usually thought of as a nonsense poem written by Lewis Carroll in 1874, when he was 42 years old...

." Toasted Cheese is usually referred to at the site as "TC."

E-zine

Toasted Cheese Literary Journal is published quarterly, on the first of March, June, September and December. TC accepts submissions of short fiction

Fiction

Fiction is the form of any narrative or informative work that deals, in part or in whole, with information or events that are not factual, but rather, imaginary—that is, invented by the author. Although fiction describes a major branch of literary work, it may also refer to theatrical,...

, flash fiction

Flash fiction

Flash fiction is a style of fictional literature or fiction of extreme brevity. There is no widely accepted definition of the length of the category...

, poetry

Poetry

Poetry is a form of literary art in which language is used for its aesthetic and evocative qualities in addition to, or in lieu of, its apparent meaning...

 and creative non-fiction on a rolling basis.

Toasted Cheese also sponsors four writing contests per year: A Midsummer Tale, Dead of Winter and spring and fall versions of Three Cheers and a Tiger. There are no entry fees for contests.

Writing community

The online writing community includes password-protected forums, a calendar with original daily writing prompts, a researched list of relevant links, monthly articles on writing with accompanying exercises and live chats. All content at TC is free although registration is required to participate in the feedback forums.