Online Writing communities

Before I started the MFA program I found it very difficult to see myself as part of a writing community, especially living in a country where the dominant language was not English. I would send my work off to literary magazines only to receive, months later, a cursory, impersonal e-mail with no mention of the content of the story. It would only say that it was not the right work at the right time. Everyone who's tried to publish knows the tune. It feels a little like screaming into a storm.
Thank goodness for the Internet. If it weren't for a couple online writing communities, I might have given up altogether.