No, this is not a mirage.

Writers Oasis is a wellspring of digital goodness for anyone interested in writing fiction. It is a site designed to grow with ones writing career and be an invaluable resource throughout the whole of it.

The site originally began back in 2003 as the site www.digitalpulp.org, a site primarily focused on short story writing and the learning of the craft. It would go through four different permutations and would even spin off a sister site for poetry (www.digitalverse.org) before it was decided that the name itself was despised by its creators with the utmost sincerity.

Digital Pulp had other problems as well. It looked nice but was slow to load. It had two different menus which often caused confusion. The story reader was hard to use on a netbook-sized screen. It was incredibly challenging to add new features to the architecture of the site. Mostly though, Digital Pulp was geared towards amateurs and had little to offer writers who were interested in building a career in writing, as opposed to those simply wondering if they could write.

Across the summer of 2010, the site was completely rewritten from head to toe. All of the problems (and many many more) were addressed. A shiny new name was procured. Writers Oasis went online in November of that year and was officially released to the public on January 1st 2011.