I think a large part of the problem here is placement. You've got it at the very bottom spot the page, you can't possibly expect it to do well there because no one will scroll down that far. It really needs to be grouped up with artwork. Instead, you've given all the discussion forums, the contests, and the special projects higher spots. Even the freaking BUFFY forum has more prominence than this one.
By the time they scroll that far down the list, they're seeing nothing but junk boards, so they just scroll back up to the art. They never even get far enough to see the writing forum. The higher it is in the list, the more people will see it and the more they'll post in it, that's just a basic advertising fact.
