About TextShelf
A collaborative workspace platform for teams that need to organize, review, and manage files and projects together.
Our Story
TextShelf began in 2018 as a project to help organizers of an annual playwriting contest manage hundreds of submissions from writers around the world. What started as a focused tool has evolved into a flexible platform for any team that needs secure workspaces to collect, review, and collaborate on files.
Since our launch, TextShelf has helped organizations save hundreds of hours of administrative work, while thousands of users have trusted us with their documents, creative works, and collaborative projects. We're proud to serve literary contests, grant programs, academic review processes, portfolio showcases, and more.
Located near Washington, DC
TextShelf LLC is a word-and-data development studio dedicated to building thoughtful tools for teams that value simplicity and security.
Wm Talcott
Public infrastructure and tooling for social research. Editor of Hypermedia Systems (Carson Gross, Adam Stepinski, Deniz Aksimsek).
Wm holds a Ph.D. in sociology and has spent over 20 years building data tools for social research — from field data collection at NeighborWorks America to the document review workflows behind TextShelf. His work sits at the intersection of software infrastructure and the practical needs of organizations that run review processes, grant programs, and collaborative projects.
TextShelf grew out of that work: a platform built to solve problems with submissions, coordination, and review — first for a playwriting contest in 2018, and now for teams across disciplines.
Current work
MCP integrations, multilingual programming tools (lokascript.org), and hypermedia interfaces for LLM agents.
What We Provide
Secure Workspaces
Create private spaces for projects with role-based access control.
File Collection
Receive submissions safely—not in your email, not on your desk.
Review Coordination
Assign submissions to reviewers and collect structured feedback.
Team Communication
Built-in messaging to keep team members coordinated.
Selection Tools
Filter, rank, and select entries based on review criteria.
Portfolio Showcase
Display work publicly with customizable portfolio pages.
Our Values
Your Data, Your Control
We stand by a strong privacy policy that keeps ownership where it belongs: your data is yours. No ads, no spam, no hidden trackers.
Built Lean, Priced Fair
We focus on core functionality that teams actually need, which keeps our platform simple, fast, and affordable. No bloat, no complexity you don't need.
Open Source Support
TextShelf is built with open source software. We dedicate at least 5% of our time or profit to supporting open source projects and communities.
Who Uses TextShelf?
- Literary contests and playwriting competitions
- Grant application review processes
- Academic peer review and manuscript evaluation
- Creative portfolio management and showcases
- Document review and team collaboration workflows
- Any organized file collection and review process