Advanced Register and Create Post Features…Need Advice

Hi,

I have a online publication running iwth WordPress and I would like to add a feature to it, which will allow some guest users to write and post articles.

What I would like to have is allow them to register to the site and not show them the backend…(even with editor or author credentials). I would like to create a seperate page, where they can be redirected once they log in…kind of “My Account” page, but still in the site itself.

Moreover, I would also like to add a form that will let them submit articles that will show up in the home page and will create a post for that.

So there are two requirements:

1) Register users from the site and keep to the site, with the possibility to have their own page.

2) Ability to create posts from the site itself and publish them, so that they show on the home page and have inividual posts permalink.

Is this possible without too much fuss or back end change to the code?

Any advice will be extremely helpful.

Thanks,
Nurul