using wp tags on other pages than index.php

I’ve just installed WP on https://thebookshelf.org, and got it to work as I want it to (displaying one category on the front page etc). Now I’d like to show a list of links from one category of my link manager on a separate page ( https://thebookshelf.org/fanlistings.php ), but I don’t know how to get the wp specific tags to work there. I tried copypasting everything but the loop from index.php, but with no success. I’ve found the link to https://techgnome.anderson-website.net/posts/2004/02/19/static-wp-pages-made-easy/ – but it’s not loading for me…
I’d also like to exclude one category from my recent posts and category displays – is there an easy way to do that?
Any help would be appreciated – thanks in advance!