The Reader’s Guide to Inkwell

Inkwell has two main places to read entries: Feed and Explore.

Your Feed is personal — it shows entries from people you follow (your pen pals). Think of it as your mailbox. When a pen pal publishes a new entry, it arrives in your Feed. If you follow writers on Mastodon or other fediverse platforms, their posts appear here too.

Explore is public — it shows all public entries from the Inkwell community and the wider fediverse. Think of it as a bookstore. You don’t need to follow anyone to see content here. Use the category filters at the top to find entries about topics you care about.

Tip: If your Feed feels empty, head to Explore and follow some writers.

Open the editor from the sidebar (or the top nav on mobile) to start writing. The rich text editor supports headings, bold, italic, links, images, lists, tables, and more.

Every entry has a visibility setting that controls who can read it:

• Public — everyone can see it, including people on the fediverse (Mastodon, Pixelfed, etc.)
• Friends Only — only your pen pals can read it
• Private — only you can see it
• Custom — choose specific people using a friend filter

Not ready to publish? Save your work as a draft and come back to it later. You can also add a category, tags, mood, cover image, and excerpt to give readers context.

On Inkwell, connections are called pen pals — like exchanging letters. When you follow someone and they follow you back, you’re pen pals.

To follow a writer, visit their profile and click the follow button. Once they accept your request, their public and friends-only entries will appear in your Feed. You can also send them direct letters (private messages).

You can follow writers from other fediverse platforms too — just search for their full handle (like @user@mastodon.social) on the search page.

Stamps are Inkwell’s way of reacting to entries — like pressing an ink stamp onto paper. Each entry shows which stamp types have been placed in the top-right corner (like postage on a letter).

You can leave one stamp per entry. Pick the one that fits how the entry made you feel — “Felt this,” “Holding space,” “Beautifully said,” and more.

Inks are a way to signal “more people should read this.” Click the ink drop icon on any entry to ink it. Unlike stamps (which express how something made you feel), inks are a discovery signal — they help surface great writing. The most-inked entries appear in the Trending This Week section on Explore, and you can sort Explore by “Most Inked” to find community favorites.

Comments support @mentions — type @ and start typing a username to mention someone. They’ll get a notification. You can edit your comments within 24 hours of posting.

Bookmarks save entries to your private reading list. Click the ribbon icon on any entry to save it for later.

Inkwell is part of the fediverse — a network of independent platforms connected through a protocol called ActivityPub. Think of it like email: you can send a message from Gmail to Outlook because they speak the same protocol. Similarly, Inkwell can talk to Mastodon, Pixelfed, Ghost, and hundreds of other platforms.

What this means for you:

• You can follow writers on Mastodon and other fediverse platforms directly from Inkwell. Their posts show up in your Feed.
• Your public entries are visible to people on other fediverse platforms. They can follow your Inkwell account from Mastodon using @yourusername@inkwell.social.
• When you see a handle like @alice@mastodon.social on Explore, that’s a writer on Mastodon whose entries appear in Inkwell.

One thing to know: if someone has accounts on both Inkwell and Mastodon (or another platform), those are separate identities. Following their Inkwell account shows you their Inkwell entries, and following their Mastodon account shows you their Mastodon posts. They’re like two different mailboxes.

You don’t need to understand ActivityPub to use Inkwell — it all works automatically. But if you’re curious, the fediverse is an open alternative to centralized social media where no single company controls the network.

Visit Settings → Customize to make your profile page your own. Every user gets:

• 8 visual themes (Manuscript, Broadsheet, Midnight Library, and more)
• A status message (like an AIM away message)
• A bio with rich text formatting
• Social links (X, Bluesky, Mastodon, GitHub, website)
• A banner image and avatar
• Guestbook for visitors to sign

Plus members ($5/mo) also get custom colors, backgrounds, fonts, layouts, a music player, avatar frames, widget ordering, and custom HTML/CSS — full creative control, like the early days of the web.