Watch the event recording and hear each spooky story read aloud.

Thank you to everyone who submitted a story for Spooky Storytime! Each tale offered something truly spine-tingling and eerie.

Congratulations to our winners: Riya Chakraborty, Samantha Almeida, Barbara Carter, LilWifey, Natalie Ann Morman, and Lily C. Fen! Your stories were selected to be read aloud for Spooky Storytime.

Join us on Thursday at 12 pm Eastern for Spooky Storytime for live readings from the authors!

Here’s the event lineup:

1. A Spooky Lockdown Night in Rouen, 2020 by Riya Chakraborty
2. Thirteen Before Midnight by Samantha Almieda
3. Was What Happened a Dream or Something Else? by Barbara Carter
4. It’s Halloween by LilWifey
5. Haunted by a Decision by Natalie Ann Morman
6. The Mystery Letter — Spooky Storytime by Lily C Fen

We hope you’ll join us and support our writers!

Announcing the Spooky Storytime Winners was originally published in The Medium Handbook on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

What’s it like to write on Medium in 2026? Can you still reach readers? Is it worth it? And what’s the best advice to do well?

CEO of Medium, Tony Stubblebine, and I tackled this from an employee and platform perspective at the start of the year, trying to pitch writers on why Medium is worth it in 2026. What does Medium promise writers, and do we think we deliver on those promises?

With this piece, I wanted to talk to those who actually started writing on Medium in 2026 to see what they concluded. Is Medium worth it? For whom? What can you get, and what does it take?

The writers who answered this survey all felt Medium was worth it, although what was interesting to me was that many had different reasons. Hardly anyone mentioned earnings (indeed, only a third of the folks who responded to me even paywall their stories to lock them for members-only), and almost everyone mentioned something about the joy and love of writing, and finding a community here.

Common threads

• ~1 in 3 mentioned you should publish before you feel ready.
• Several said writing on Medium led to a job, clients, or a professional brand.
• Most had no following when they started!

Who we heard from

I reached out to 151 writers who published their first story in 2026, looking for a mix of topics, frequency, locations, and audience sizes. I wanted to hear from a wide range of experiences, writing backgrounds, and motivations for writing. 31 writers got back to me, spanning topics from tech to comedy to faith. Here’s what they said.

Why writers chose Medium in 2026

My question was: Why Medium, out of all the platforms available to you?

In general, writers chose Medium (versus any other blogging platform!) to start writing because:

• They hoped to find distribution without needing an existing audience
• They didn’t want to set up their own site first
• They wanted to focus on writing, not self-promotion

Here’s what they said in their own words (note, I didn’t ask them to compare us to any particular platform!):

"The fact that I wouldn't need to stick to a single field or domain to write about... and the promise of algorithmic discovery (I can't hustle), made me choose Medium over Substack." — Anindita Basu

"Medium is extremely focused on the content. You write, you publish, and the piece stands or falls on its own." — Tomas Nyx Garrett

"I was, also, searching for a writing platform that prioritized quality over engagement. I hated the social media structure of platforms like Substack because I just want to focus on writing instead of constantly marketing and selling." — Sarah M Naidoo

"I felt too discombobulated by distractions and the 'social media' style of interactions [on Substack]... so Medium won." — Varyanne Sika

"I chose Medium because I feel comfortable that my ideas will be given fair consideration and that the algorithm here won't bury my writing or prioritize bigger platforms." — Tieshka K Smith

Resources

• What happens to your story when you publish on Medium (Medium Help Center)

What surprised new Medium writers most

I was interested in what the new writer experience is like on Medium in 2026. What were the surprises?

Broadly speaking, here’s what writers found eye-opening:

• It really was possible to reach readers with no followers
• Readers finish even the longer stories
• The responses to stories were engaging and high quality
• You never know exactly who is reading your stories
• Writing could be addictive!

In their own words:

One of my stories reached the person I credited having created the game “Doom” back in 1993. — Trevor Dwyer

"[T]he read-through rate was high even when views were low... I had expected the opposite." — Arti

"How quickly I got an audience! I didn't have specific expectations but getting people to read my rather long articles was not something I thought was going to work out." — Varyanne Sika

"I've discovered that writing on Medium can become a conversation, and I didn't expect that when I started." — Steven Baru

"How addictive it can become! You publish one story, get some great feedback, and suddenly you're already thinking about what you could write next." — Victoria Friss de Kereki

"How little a post's reach had to do with how deep or how technical it was and how much it had to do with framing." — Yaro Perventsev

How long does it take to get readers on Medium?

On Medium, many new writers experienced how they could get readers with no following…but how long did it take for that to happen?

Here’s what writers agreed on:

• It’s normal to take a while to find your footing
• Some stories get traction even weeks after you publish them
• Publications matter

Some specific quotes:

"It was easy to publish on Medium, a little harder to find followers, but I stuck with it. I found a publisher that accepted me as a writer, which exposed my writing to a broader audience." — Don Hughes BA, MPA

"I chose Medium for the built-in distribution network so that my writing can reach more people through tracked tags and publications." — Josh Allan

[C]onsistency is the single most important thing, right after the writing itself…What actually builds anything on Medium is showing up again and again with one focused piece at a time.” — Tomas Nyx Garrett

Resources

• How (and why) to submit to a Medium publication (Medium Handbook)
• Why (and why not) to publish with a Medium publication (Medium Handbook)

Success beyond writing on Medium

What can writing on Medium turn into? Writers shared that their stories ended up leading to jobs, consulting clients, press, confidence, community, and some earnings through the Medium Partner Program.

Here are some standout quotes:

"The best thing that's happened because I write on Medium is landing my dream job... working in sports analytics. Writing on Medium gave me the opportunity to build and showcase my portfolio." — Victoria Friss de Kereki

"I got my first consulting project after deciding to be a full time independent researcher because of my writing here." — Varyanne Sika

"The realization that my ideas, projects, and opinions can mean something to others. I can still meaningfully contribute even at 55+ years old." — Frank

"Invaluable writing experience even though I don't make much money doing it." — Dana Hilz Black

"Medium was the first public step in a much bigger process" toward building a personal brand and being featured in the press. — Andra Ciucescu

Why writers believe their best stories landed

I was intrigued to learn what writers thought was their “secret sauce”: what made their stories stand out on Medium?

It was much harder to pick common themes here, because it varied so much by topic. Life stories were successful due to their relatability; tech tutorials did well because of their methodology. The one common factor that almost every writer mentioned was their unique perspective — the reason that writer was writing that story, the viewpoint nobody else can provide.

On "Who Controls the Salt": "Salt is a tiny detail. Nobody building a world thinks to ask who owns it. The moment you do, the answer drags everything else out with it." — Tomas Nyx Garrett

On the unified auditing piece: "I stopped writing 'how to configure auditing' and started writing about the real problem: how do you catch the one event that matters when the audit trail is drowning in noise?" — Yaro Perventsev

On the wedding piece: "I think it landed because everyone can relate to bad wedding experiences." — Lynn Vieira

"It answered a question people had actually asked themselves... with a method rather than a guess, and it showed its uncertainty honestly." — Arti

Advice for new Medium writers, from no-longer-new Medium writers

When I asked what their one piece of advice would be for anyone thinking about starting writing on Medium, here’s the playbook these writers recommended:

1. Start before you're ready.

"Don't overthink it... I was a bit nervous in case no one liked it... But after getting over those nerves and not overpolishing it I eventually published it and I couldn't be happier." — Josh Allan

“Don't let the fear of writing badly stop you from writing at all.” — Ammarah Ahmed

Just do it. Start. That's the whole advice." — Tomas Nyx Garrett

2. Consistency beats one perfect story.

"I wish I'd known that consistency matters far more than perfection... the real value comes from shipping regularly." — Josh Allan

"What actually builds anything on Medium is showing up again and again with one focused piece at a time." — Tomas Nyx Garrett

3. Write from real experience or work.

"Write from work you've actually done... It's much easier to be clear about something you understand deeply than to sound clever about something you skimmed." — Arti

"Make your claims checkable... once you commit to 'here's how you can prove this yourself,' you can't hand-wave anymore." — Yaro Perventsev

4. Write for the reader with the problem.

"Write for the person who has the problem right now, the one debugging it at 2am, not for the reader you're trying to impress." — Yaro Perventsev

"Be yourself, and write the way you'd talk to a friend. Don't try to sound smart with fancy words." — Dominika Sułot

5. Ignore the stats early on.

"I've stopped worrying about the stats. I'm writing what I want to write and having fun with it." — Kathy Matthes

"Just keep writing, don't worry about followers." — Don Hughes BA, MPA

6. Read other writers!

"[Y]ou have to read other writers." — James Dale

What new writers wish they'd known before publishing

Knowing what they know now, what would these writers have done differently at the start?

Formatting: "Formatting tips." — Dana Hilz Black

Tags: "Choosing tags that exist and have large audiences is better than creating a new tag category, though building a new category can be helpful, too." — Kathy Matthes

Titles: "The title and how to attract others to turn from view to read." — Laij - Action

"Titles can be tricky. I keep fiddling with some of them." — Kathy Matthes

Publications: "I wish I'd known about Medium's publication system. I think it's a lovely way for strong pieces to find a wider audience." — Hiroshi Sato / 佐藤 仁

"I wish I knew more about publications! They've been very helpful to get my pieces read by bigger audiences." — MaryAnn McIntyre

Canonical links: "Publish on a platform you own first, with the canonical link pointing back to it. It's trivial to set up early and a real headache to retrofit later." — Yaro Perventsev

Resources

• Formatting: Tips and Tricks for Medium Writers (The Medium Blog)
• Tags: How to use topics on Medium (Medium Handbook)
• Titles: A guide to writing titles on Medium (Medium Handbook)
• Publications: How (and why) to submit to a Medium publication (Medium Handbook)
• Canonical links: Set a canonical link and Importing a post to Medium (Medium Help Center)

Writing for Medium readers vs other audiences?

Most writers I spoke to write on Medium among other places: a newsletter platform like Substack or Ghost, another social media platform like LinkedIn, or their personal website. I was curious how their writing strategy changed depending on where they wanted to publish their writing.

Publishing on your own site is canonical, Medium is adapted for a feed audience

The most common crossposting pattern came from writers with an established site or platform.

• On their own site, they aim for direct, search-driven openings ("reader already searched for the exact problem").
• On Medium, they write for readers. Many mentioned thinking more about how to include human stakes or a human scenario up top, since readers are browsing rather than searching.
• In terms of style, many mentioned translating jargon into plainer language for Medium’s readers, while others talked about how they slow down and explain the why behind a decision, not just the result.

"I publish everything on my own site first. That's the canonical home for the work... On my own site, the reader already searched for the exact problem like 'Oracle flashback,' so I can open literally and get straight to it. On Medium, people are browsing a feed, so I have to earn the read." — Yaro Perventsev

"My own platform itself (QuantGamer) is where most of my writing goes: methodology pages, score explanations, comparison verdicts. That writing has to be terse and consistent because thousands of pages share the same voice. Medium is the opposite…I use it to explain why a decision was made." — Arti

"I did write some of the scientific papers in the past, but here, on Medium, I am mostly focusing on using as simple words as possible so everyone can understand it." — Dominika Sułot

"I mostly write on my own website blog, other than Medium. I think the key difference is that my website blog is more focused on being an Insights Hub aligned with my Services company... whereas on Medium my pieces are a mix of thought pieces with my experience and certain best practices woven in." — Ammarah Ahmed

Newsletters as a secondary container, with broadly the same voice

A few writers mentioned crossposting their Medium stories as newsletters, but describe the writing as basically the same. One very interesting exception: a writer who uses Substack only for its AI-generated companion images.

"I also have a Substack which is a container for all my work. But Medium is the primary place for me to submit my pieces for a wider distribution, as well as a great spot for reader feedback." — Lynn Vieira

"Substack, however I only use this for the AI-generated images Substack creates with my articles, which can be posted on social media (Instagram etc.). I don't do anything differently when it comes to the articles, but Medium has been much more successful." — Sarah M Naidoo

LinkedIn to promote, Medium to go deeper or get personal

LinkedIn carries a professional tone and often just links out to the Medium piece; Medium is where the same writers say they're "unapologetically me," more personal, or building a longer-form portfolio.

"My articles and stories on Medium [versus LinkedIn] are more personal and open." — The Flexible Mind

"[T]he difference between LinkedIn and Medium is that on Medium I'm unapologetically me in my writing. I can write as I talk and even throw in a meme or two, and that is me, whereas on LinkedIn I feel as though I have to be that little bit more professional."— Josh Allan

"I also write on LinkedIn, where I mainly share my Medium articles with a wider audience... On Medium, I focus more on building my portfolio through longer, more in-depth pieces, while LinkedIn helps me get that work in front of a much wider audience and start conversations around it." — Victoria Friss de Kereki

Formal outlets vs Medium as the human counterpart

Some writers also publish peer-reviewed papers, memoirs, or stories in the press (USA Today, NYT). On Medium, they write for reflection, community, or activism rather than the formal record.

"I also run a Substack and my social media channels. I try to get published in major publications; I was in USA Today last week and the NY Times last month... On Medium, I'm trying to rally my queer community and speak to like-minded supporters, and on another platform, I'm trying to convince them to support trans equality or fight to save democracy." — James Dale

What’s it like to write on Medium in 2026?

This is a very small snapshot of writers, but it tallies with our overall understanding (and, yes, our deepest hopes and dreams) that writing and reading are far from dead: they’re having a huge revival in a time when human writing is one of the most precious things, both to do for yourself and to share with others. I’ll leave you with a smattering of my favorite quotes from the writers on what it’s like to write on Medium in 2026.

"Medium gave me a new sense of purpose….I've also found people who share my interests, and that means a lot to me. I'm an immigrant, and I don't have many people around me here with whom I can share these interests." — Kris Berner

"[M]y ideas, projects, and opinions can mean something to others. I can still meaningfully contribute even at 55+ years old." — Frank

"How addictive it is! I am really catching myself sometimes thinking about the next topics I want to cover." — Dominika Sułot

"Honestly, how much fun I had doing it." — MaryAnn McIntyre

"I have had these ideas in my head for many years, and didn't have the confidence to publish. Medium has given me that confidence." — Trevor Dwyer

"The incredible community of writers and readers are so supportive." — James Dale

"The connection with both readers and writers with shared opinions, experiences and frustrations!" — The Flexible Mind

"Some of the sharpest feedback I've gotten came from Medium's comments: working DBAs pushing back on a claim, adding the caveat I'd missed... it made the writing better." — Yaro Perventsevv

"Great connections with readers and publication editors." — Hiroshi Sato / 佐藤 仁

“The best thing has been discovering that something I wrote for myself can mean something to someone else… That’s enormously rewarding.” — Steven Baru

FAQ

Is writing on Medium worth it in 2026?

Most respondents said yes! Why? For reach, feedback, and in several cases, a job or client that came from having a public body of work.

How do new writers get readers on Medium?

Almost all writers mentioned learning over time. Publications, topic tags, and a clear framing of the idea did more for reach than technical depth or polish.

Do you need a following to start on Medium?

No. Most respondents started at zero and still found readers.

Thinking about starting on Medium? Advice from 31 writers who started in 2026 was originally published in The Medium Handbook on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Hi editors,

Happy October! Here’s what’s going on this month:

• Meet our five Editor Award winners, chosen from 300+ of your nominations
• How are you using the (new!) content calendar? Plus, the behind-the-scenes story of this year’s editor tools (and why publications now get 10 topics instead of five)
• An update to the Editor Partner Program — we’ve more than doubled payments to editors since we launched
• Share your November writing prompts, and check out our October 2026 writing prompts
• Upcoming events: Spooky Storytime, The Writers Circle, Medium 101, Writing Hour, and TK 101

Recognizing five brilliant Medium editors

Editing is kind of a mystical art. Writing goes in, editing happens, and better writing comes out. But there are so many ways for that process to occur, which means there are so many ways to recognize it.

At Medium Day, we were thrilled to celebrate five editors for the editorial work readers always appreciate, but rarely notice. We received 300+ nominations, which made choosing hard in the best way. Alas, decisions must be made!

Here are this round’s winners:

• Community Builder Award: Rodrigo S-C, editor of Full Frame.
• Equity in Action Award: Patsy Fergusson, editor of Fourth Wave.
• Champion of Emerging Voices Award: Susan Brearley, editor of MuddyUm.
• Story Whisperer Award: Ali Hall, editor of Life Without Children.
• Editor’s Editor Award: Debra Groves Harman, editor of The Narrative Arc.

Congratulations to all five! You can read every nomination quote in my Medium Day recap.

This was our second round of Editor Awards this year. The first winners were announced at Pub Crawl in March. Now it’s officially a twice-a-year tradition, so look out for another chance to recognize an editor you admire.

Share your feedback: How are you using the content calendar?

Last month, we launched the content calendar for publications. If you haven’t tried it yet, open your publication’s scheduled stories and switch from List view to Calendar view. Every scheduled story shows up on its go-live date and time, and you can drag and drop stories to a new day if plans change.

Now I want to hear from you:

• Has the calendar changed how you plan your publication’s schedule?
• What’s missing?
• Anything confusing?

The content calendar is a direct result of editors asking for what they want, so don’t stop now! Please keep sharing what could make your life editing on Medium easier, better, and more joyful.

Reply to this email and let me know, or raise a ticket here.

What changed for publications and editors?

Want to see how the sausage was made? Scott Batson, the engineer behind many of this year’s editor tools, wrote a candid behind-the-scenes story: What we built for Medium editors this year (and what I broke). A few of my favorite details:

• Balancing easier submissions with a good editorial experience. We wanted more publications to open their submissions, but we knew “open” can mean a flood of low-quality stories. As someone put it in one meeting: “Open submissions doesn’t feel fair … unless we give them something that makes their lives better.” That’s where bulk decline, off-topic badges, submission requirements, and decline reasons came from.
• Publications can now use 10 topics instead of 5. Off-topic badges on stories in your publication draw from the five topics you set as your publication’s topics. Editors asked why the limit was five, so Scott dug in and found… nobody knows! He bumped up the topic limit to ten to help editors use the off-topic badges more effectively.
• Whoops–we broke something. When Scott shipped decline reasons, there was a solid hour nobody could submit to a publication on all of Medium. Oops! Luckily we started hearing from users pretty quickly, and it was a quick fix.

An update to the Editor Partner Program

When we launched the Editor Partner Program, our goal was “make it clear your work is appreciated and you have a share in the success of the platform.”

Four months in, we more than doubled how much we’re paying out to editors. This is due to both more publications and editors qualifying, as well as qualifying stories earning more.

Honestly, we’re thrilled to send more money your way, for two reasons. First, the mission one: Editors matter to us at Medium. We appreciate the work you do, from finding great writers, sharpening their stories, and building publications readers come back to.

And secondly, it’s just good business sense. Every dollar we spend on editors helps us make Medium a better place to read and write, which is what makes our company grow. The more your stories thrive, the more you earn. We want payouts to keep climbing.

If your publication isn’t in the program yet, check your eligibility under Manage publication > Editor Partner Program. We auto-enroll new, qualifying publications at the start of every month.

Thank you for everything you do for writers and readers on Medium.

Spooky Storytime: Join, listen, and encourage your writers to join!

We’re hosting our first ever Spooky Storytime! Join us on Thursday, October 29, 12 p.m. Eastern. Six Medium writers read their spookiest stories live. Here’s how your writers can enter.

As an editor, feel free to take part as a spectator, encouraging your writers to enter, or as a contestant yourself.

Just attend The Writers Circle on October 15, respond to the spooky prompt, and publish your story on Medium with the topic “Spooky Storytime.” Stories need to be under five minutes long and meet our Distribution Guidelines.

We’ll let selected writers know on October 23, and six of them will read their stories aloud at our first-ever Spooky Storytime on October 29. Everyone is welcome to come listen. Here’s everything you need to know about entering.

Call for your November prompts

Thinking further ahead than October: Is your publication putting out writing prompts for November? Tag me in the story (@zulie_at_medium) or reply to this email when you publish your prompt, and I’ll include it in next month’s Writer Newsletter.

Thank you to all the editors who sent prompts for October! Here’s the full list of October 2026 writing prompts. Don’t see yours? Reply and I’ll add it.

Upcoming events

Join us (virtually) for…

• Spooky Storytime — Thursday, October 29, 12 pm ET. Six Medium writers read their spookiest stories live. Here’s how your writers can enter.
• TK 101 webinar — Tuesday, October 13, 1 pm ET. A demo of our social writing app TK, with live Q&A at the end.
• Medium 101 webinar — October 14 (12 pm ET), October 23 (9 am ET), and October 28 (12 pm ET). Send your newer writers! We cover formatting, topics, images, and all the basics.
• The Writers Circle — Thursday, October 15, 12 pm ET. Prompts, community chatting time, and the last chance for your writers to enter Spooky Storytime.
• Writing Hour — Every Thursday, 10 am ET. Cameras off, relaxing music, just write.

Missed a Medium Day session? Recordings are available for registrants to rewatch until October 31. Just follow the same instructions from Medium Day to log into the event and find them in the “Sessions” tab to catch up. (We’ll have more information about recordings in our next newsletter — stay tuned!)

That’s it for October. As always, reply with questions, feedback, or anything you’d like to see in a future newsletter.

Happy editing,

— Zulie @ Medium

P.S. As a reward for reading to the bottom of this very long newsletter, here is some breaking news: We (finally!) released dark mode for Medium! Did you spot any of my easter egg hints in the previous newsletter?

We’ll be making more of an upcoming splash about it in the coming weeks, but if you’re this far down on the newsletter, you deserve a sneak peek. If you want dark mode but don’t see it yet, head on over to Settings > Appearance > Dark mode to turn it on.

Editor Newsletter: The five editors who won our Medium Day Editor Awards was originally published in The Medium Handbook on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Happy October! The days are getting shorter and the nights are getting longer, which feels fitting this month 🌑

Here’s your list of Medium updates:

• Have you played our (new!) word game?
• Check out the (new!) topic pages to encourage readers to dive deeper into your stories.
• See all your scheduled stories in one (new!) calendar view. Originally only for publication editors, now for all writers.
• FAQs about (new!) custom footers for your stories.
• What’s the State of Writing in 2026? Stats on loving writing, using AI, and reasons to write.
• Last chance to enter Spooky Storytime: Join The Writers Circle on October 15.
• Need ideas for what to write this month? Check out our October 2026 writing prompts.
• Missed Medium Day? Read the recap. If you registered but couldn’t make it, you can catch up on sessions by logging into Zoom on Mediumday.com. For those who didn’t register, we’ll have sessions uploaded by the end of October on our YouTube channel.
• Upcoming events: Spooky Storytime, The Writers Circle, Medium 101, Writing Hour, and TK 101.

A good word(s) experiment on Medium

If you’re a game lover, check out Medium’s first game, Good Words!

Good Words is a three-minute, live word game you play in rounds alongside other readers on Medium. Search the board for as many words as you can, see if you can spot the bonus word with a clue, and learn the definitions of words you missed at the end of a round. If you’d like to try it out, head to Medium Games (only available on web for now).

Since it’s only available on the web, make sure you open that link on your browser, not the app, if you want to try it. Here’s a link you can copy-paste into your browser if you’re running into issues: medium.com/games/good-words.

A better way to dive into topics

Over half a million readers browse topic pages every month, like Medium.com/tag/writing (only available on web for now). We’ve known for a while at Medium that those pages could be better — easier to explore, easier to find great stories, easier to turn into a catalogue of human wisdom.

We recently revamped our topic pages with those goals in mind. Each topic page groups stories into themes, with short AI-generated summaries that give readers more context on each theme and story.

For writers like you, that means older stories get a real second chance at finding readers. It’s also a good reason to choose your topics carefully: pick the ones that describe what your story is about, since that’s how it ends up in the right place. (Your story shows up on a topic page whenever you add that topic to it (you can add up to five).

Want to see an example? Check out a topic page — like the writing topic page — again, only available on web for now! Copy-paste medium.com/tag/writing into your browser if you want to make sure it works.

I know the inclusion of AI can raise a lot of questions for writers, so if you want more details about the new topic pages and how we’re thinking about AI, please check out our help desk article. Feedback? We’re all ears. Raise a ticket here, we read every single one.

What’s the State of Writing in 2026?

In short, 2026 is bringing a writing revival, and we have the data to prove it.

A lot of people say reading and writing are dying. We didn’t believe it, so we asked writers. We partnered with The Harris Poll to survey 1,175 writers from across the internet about how they write, how often, and why. The result is our first annual State of Writing report.

If you want to prove the reading-and-writing haters right and get the TL;DR version instead of reading the whole report yourself, here are the stats I found personally most interesting:

• The biggest takeaway is that writers still enjoy writing–over 75% like or love it.
• Obviously, AI is part of the picture, but there’s nuance. Over 70% of writers used AI in their writing in the last three months, mostly for editing, brainstorming topics, and getting feedback.
• Yet 60% don’t trust writing they produced with AI, and 69% don’t trust AI-assisted writing from others.
• Out of the writers we surveyed, only about a quarter share their writing publicly every month.
• Plus, money isn’t the main motivation for most writers. Only 12% write to earn.
• The biggest motications for writing were self expression (56%) and self-care (41%).
• The most common goal for the next year is to finish a major personal project (38%), not to grow an audience.

You should read the whole report! It’s good. But if you don’t get the chance, I hope this snapshot gives you the same feeling it gave me: Writing is alive and well, writers enjoy writing, AI is changing things across the board, but the overall landscape is a hopeful, positive one for reading and writing.

Read the full report here.

Your scheduled stories, now on a calendar

Last month, editors got a content calendar for their publications. Now every writer has one too. Head to your Scheduled tab and you’ll see every story you’ve scheduled in a calendar view.

If you’ve never scheduled a story in advance, give it a try! When you have a publish-ready draft, press “Publish” and then choose “Schedule a time to publish” to pick a date and time.

Custom footers

You can now add a reusable footer at the end of every story you publish. It’s a handy place to point readers to your newsletter, your book, or your other work, as well as your social media profiles. Try it out by going to Settings > Publishing > Manage Story footer.

At the moment, this feature is free to use for any writer. Try it out, see what you think, and let us know if you have any thoughts, either by raising a ticket or sharing in our blog post responses. While we plan to charge for it in the near future, we’ll give you a heads up before we get to that point so you can decide if you like it and want to keep it.

In the meantime, we’ve gotten tons of great feedback from users already — thank you! — and over 12,000 writers have tried it out. We also got some great questions in our blog post announcing the feature — I updated the FAQ section to include the answers to those, covering if you’ll get surprise billed (no), more customization options (not yet, but thanks for the feedback), and what you’re allowed to link and promote (basically anything, just don’t break the Rules) among other questions.

Spooky Storytime: Last chance to enter

We’re hosting our first ever Spooky Storytime! Join us on Thursday, October 29, 12 pm ET. We’ll choose six Medium writers to read their spookiest stories live. Here’s how you can enter.

Attend The Writers Circle on October 15, respond to the spooky prompt, and publish your story on Medium with the topic “Spooky Storytime.” Stories need to be under five minutes long and meet our Distribution Guidelines.

We’ll let selected writers know on October 23, and six of you will read your stories aloud at our first-ever Spooky Storytime on October 29. Everyone is welcome to come listen. Here’s everything you need to know about entering.

October 2026 writing prompts

Need an idea for what to write about? Editors across Medium have put together prompts for the month, plenty of them suitably spooky. Here’s the full list of October prompts.

Thank you to the editors and publications who sent prompts this month. Find or take part in a prompt I missed? Reply to this email and let me know.

Thank you for Medium Day

Thank you to everyone who joined us on September 18. We ran 111 sessions and had attendees from 120 countries, and the chat was chatty all day long.

If you missed it, I wrote up what stood out at Medium Day 2026. Session recordings are starting to go up on our YouTube channel! Keep your eyes peeled. If you registered but couldn’t make it, you can catch the recordings by logging into Mediumday.com. If you didn’t register, keep your eyes on our YouTube channel — we’ll have sessions uploaded by the end of October.

Upcoming events

Join us virtually for…

• Spooky Storytime — Thursday, October 29, 12 pm ET. Six Medium writers read their spookiest stories live.
• TK 101 webinar — Tuesday, October 13, 1 pm ET. A demo of our social writing app TK, with live Q&A at the end.
• Medium 101 webinar — October 14 (12 pm ET), October 23 (9 am ET), and October 28 (12 pm ET). Formatting, topics, images, and all the basics.
• The Writers Circle — Thursday, October 15, 12 pm ET. Prompts, community chatting time, and your last chance to enter Spooky Storytime.
• Writing Hour — Every Thursday, 10 am ET. Cameras off, relaxing music, just write.

As always, reply to this email with questions, feedback, or anything you’d like to see in future issues.

Happy writing to you, at any time of day or night.

Zulie @ Medium

Writer newsletter: A new calendar view for your scheduled stories was originally published in The Medium Handbook on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Calling all writers…if you dare. We’re hosting our first-ever Spooky Storytime on October 29th, 2026 at 12pm Eastern on Zoom, and we want to hear your scariest, strangest, most delightfully unsettling stories. Sign up here!

What is it?

Spooky Storytime is an hour-long event open to writers and readers, where six selected writers will read excerpts aloud from their spooky stories to our live audience on Zoom. Think nostalgic campfire vibes.

Want to read your story aloud? Here’s how to enter:

1. Sign up and attend either the October 1st or October 15th session of The Writers Circle. Sign up here.
2. Respond to one of the Spooky Storytime prompts we share at the Writers Circle.
3. Publish your spooky story on Medium with the topic tag “Spooky Storytime” by October 19. Here’s how to add topic tags.

Submission guidelines:

• Stories should be 5 minutes or less and a max of 750 words. (Long enough to spook, short enough to keep the room on edge.)
• Stories must meet our Distribution Guidelines.

We’ll review all qualifying stories and notify selected writers by October 23. If you’re selected, we’ll send you the next steps for the big day.

The reading takes place live on Zoom during Spooky Storytime on October 29, 12 PM Eastern and is open to everyone, whether you’re reading, listening, or just there for the chills.

Sign up now for Spooky Storytime!

Something Wicked This Way Writes was originally published in The Medium Handbook on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Hi writers,

Happy September! Here is your list of Medium updates. Remember — if you’re reading this on the web, you can use the Table of Contents on the right to easily navigate this newsletter to whatever sections interest you most!

Medium Day 2026 is September 18 — save your spot!

On Friday, September 18, join us for Medium Day: over 12 hours of free virtual sessions on writing, storytelling, and community, running 8 am to 8 pm ET. Register here.

This year, Friends of Medium get exclusive access to attend a special talk on the State of Writing 2026, presented by VP of Content Scott Lamb. We worked with Harris Polling to survey writers across the internet, and separately polled our own Medium writers, so expect data-backed answers on what motivates people to write, how they feel about where writing is headed, and what they’re actually trying to get out of it.

Partner Program enrollment is instant now

We’ve streamlined the Partner Program enrollment flow. Instead of applying and waiting to hear back, you go through the flow and get a yes or no immediately, along with what’s missing if you don’t yet qualify. No more waiting in the dark.

If you’ve been putting off applying because you weren’t sure how, or if you’ve applied before but either didn’t hear back or weren’t sure why you didn’t get accepted, now’s the time to take another look. Here’s the link to enroll.

New on Medium: Making Topics more discoverable

Topic badges now show up at the top of stories, not just the bottom, so readers can tell what a piece is about at a glance; we’ve already seen reads pick up across Medium since making that change. Read more about that change here.

This isn’t the only change we’re making to topics: Look out for a newly designed topic page coming out shortly.

When writers on Medium think of discovery, they often think about their story getting “picked up” by our recommendation system and shown to readers Medium’s system thinks will be most interested in that story, either on the home feed or in the personalized Digest emails we send out.

Not many think of topic pages. This is a big blind spot! Your story is added to a topic page when you add a topic to that story. You can add up to five. Over half a million readers scan the topic pages (e.g. Medium.com/tag/writing) every month, looking for the latest stories to read. We hear from readers, especially those who read on Medium for professional reasons, that this is the best way to read cutting edge developments in their field.

We want to add an extra dimension to that utility — not just the most recent stories, but the best, regardless of how old they are.

In general, social media has a recency bias. It’s easy to find what people are engaging with right now but it’s harder to dig through the archives to find something great from 2019 or whenever. But just because your story was published months or years ago doesn’t mean it’s not worth discovering and reading today.

We’re launching the early redesign soon, but we’re planning to make more changes to the topic pages to make them into more of a catalogue, archive, and deep dive resource in addition to a place to see the latest writing on any topic.

September 2026 writing prompts

Need an idea for what to write about? Editors on Medium have been burning the midnight oil to bring you prompts. Here’s the full list of September prompts.

Thanks to everyone who sent one in this month. Find or participate in a prompt I missed? Reply to this email to let me know — I’d love to include as many prompts, across as many topics, as possible!

Spooky Storytime: October 29, 2026

On October 1 and October 15, we’ll put out some spooky Halloween-themed prompts for anyone who attends The Writers Circle. On October 29th, six lucky entrants will have the opportunity to read their story aloud at our first-ever Spooky Storytime event on October 29th.

How to enter:

1. Sign up and attend either the Oct 1st or October 15th session of The Writers Circle
2. Respond to one of the Spooky Storytime prompts
3. Publish your spooky story with the topic tag “Spooky Storytime”

We’ll look through all qualifying stories (less than 5 minutes long and meet our Distribution Guidelines) and notify selected writers on October 23. The reading happens on Zoom during Spooky Storytime and is open to all.

Look out for more details coming soon! For now, register for The Writers Circle and start getting into the spooky mood.

Upcoming events

• Medium Day — Friday, September 18, 8 am — 8 pm ET. From early light until it gets dark! Register here.
• The Writers Circle — Oct 1, 12 pm ET. Prompts, writing time, and a chance to connect with other writers and editors.
• Writing Hour — Every Thursday, 10 am ET. Cameras off, relaxing music, just write.
• Medium 101 Webinar — Wednesdays and Fridays. Send your newer writers! We cover formatting, tags, images, and all the basics.
• TK 101 webinar — Monthly demo of what our social writing app TK is all about, with time for a live Q&A at the end. Next one is October 13th at 1 pm ET.

As always, reply to this email with questions, feedback, or anything you’d like to see in future issues.

Happy writing, no matter what time of day or night you open your draft.

– Zulie @ Medium

Writer Newsletter: What’s the value in an older but still great story? was originally published in The Medium Handbook on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Hi editors,

Happy September! Here’s your monthly Medium update.

(As a reminder, you can easily navigate this story on the web using the Table of Contents feature on the right of your screen.)

Editor Partner Program: what’s changing, and why

As of September 1, we’re updating two of the criteria that determine Editor Partner Program eligibility. Read more in our blog post here.

We removed the “healthy distribution” requirement across your last six months. We’re also lowering the published-story cap from 300 to 100 stories a month, but only going forward, starting September 1. If you published over 100 stories in the past six months, that won’t affect your eligibility.

A few questions we’ve been hearing:

Q: Why remove the healthy distribution requirement?

Several of you told us it was confusing and frustrating to not get healthy distribution on stories, but without knowing what you could do to improve that. Our goal with the Editor Partner Program requirements is to reward the publications that help Medium thrive and grow, and to help publications that don’t yet qualify to get there. The Healthy Distribution qualification didn’t give editors useful information, and was pretty confusing to many of you, so we decided to scrap it.

Q: Why reduce the story cap?

This change came as a result of more data and reader feedback. Readers have told us that some higher-volume publications feel less curated, and we saw that reflected in our internal data.

Q: Will a publication’s newsletter count toward the story limit?

No, newsletters won’t count to the 100-story limit, only stories.

Read more in our blog post here.

Medium Day is September 18

Friday, September 18 is Medium Day, with Writing, Community, Platform, and Perspectives tracks. Come with an empty notebook and leave with something tangible to help you improve your life in some way, big or small.

New this year is our State of Writing 2026 report, presented by Scott Lamb. The talk is only available to Friends of Medium, but the report will be released publicly later that same day. It’s a good session to point your writers toward, especially anyone building an audience on Medium right now — consider sharing the registration link with your writers if you haven’t already. Expect data-backed answers to questions like:

• What motivates writers to write
• How writers feel about the outlook of writing
• What writers are aiming to accomplish through their writing
• And more: tools, audiences, money, reading, and beyond

We worked with Harris Polling to target writers from all over the country and internet, and separately polled our own Medium writers. It’s been very interesting to see how Medium writers differ from writers who primarily write elsewhere online!

New tools for managing your publication

A few editor improvements that reached your publication this month:

Check out your content calendar view. (Blog post here.) You can now choose to use a visual calendar that you set up and see your upcoming story schedule. When you schedule stories, they’ll show up on your calendar with the time they’re going live. You can also drag and drop those stories to another day.

Editors can now see and manage editors and writers more easily. You now have a new page to more easily see, add, and review all the editors and writers in your publication. Now, on the “Editors & writers” tab on your publication drop-down menu, you can not only add writers and co-editors, but also see their profile picture and bio in a searchable list. Plus, you can export them all via CSV.

We heard from editors with a lot of contributing writers and editors that the old way of doing it was a little unwieldy to manage — hard to see who was already there, no information beyond a handle like @zulie_at_medium, and if you wanted to remove a writer, you’d have to visually spot them first. Now, we hope it’s a bit simpler to manage your publication’s contributors.

Publications with just one editor now get that editor auto-assigned to new submissions instead of needing to manually claim them every time.

Submission inbox filters now persist, so if you find you always filter to approved writers or new writers, that’ll be your default view.

More of these improvements are in the pipeline.

New on Medium

In places other than your publication, we’re continuing to make Medium a better place for all your reading and writing needs. Here’s the list of this month’s improvements:

• Topic badges now show up at the top of stories, not just the bottom, so readers can tell what a piece is about at a glance. This resulted in an increase in reads across all of Medium!
• Medium Partner Program enrollment is now streamlined and gives you an instant yes or no. Basically, instead of needing to apply and wait, you can now go through the enrollment flow and get your answer immediately. This update is more for writers than editors, but I know editors often field questions about the Partner Program from writers, so I wanted to let you know.
• A sneak preview: look out for a newly designed topic page coming out this week!
• An even sneakier preview: rest your weary eyes on a long-awaited new feature, announced next month! 🌖

Call for your October prompts

If your publication is putting out writing prompts for October, tag me in the story (Zulie @ Medium), or reply to the Editor Newsletter email you received and I’ll include them in next month’s Writer Newsletter.

Thank you to all the editors who let me know about their September prompts! And if you don’t see your pub’s prompts in my September roundup, please reply to this email to let me know.

Need ideas? We’re planning on running a Spooky Storytime prompt for October through The Writers Circle, so feel free to get inspired by the spookiest month of the year! More details to come.

Upcoming events

• Medium Day — Friday, September 18, 8 am–8 pm ET. Register here.
• The Writers Circle — Oct 1, 12 pm ET. Prompts, writing time, and a chance to connect with other writers and editors.
• Writing Hour — Every Thursday, 10 am ET. Cameras off, relaxing music, just write.
• Medium 101 Webinar — Wednesdays and Fridays. Send your newer writers! We cover formatting, tags, images, and all the basics.
• TK 101 webinar — Monthly demo of what our social writing app TK is all about, with time for a live Q&A at the end. Next one is October 13th at 1 pm ET.

That’s it for September. As always, reply with questions, feedback, or anything you’d like to see in a future newsletter.

Happy editing,

– Zulie @ Medium

Editor Newsletter: Have you checked out your publication’s new content calendar? was originally published in The Medium Handbook on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Hi editors,

Happy August! Here’s what’s going on this month:

• Editors can now set controls on what stories can be submitted and share a reason when declining a submission
• Readers are now prompted to follow you when you share stories externally
• A clearer view into where your publication stands with the Editor Partner Program
• Nominate a fellow editor for an Editor Award
• Call for September writing prompts (and send me your August prompts)
• Upcoming events–Medium 101, The Writers Circle, and Writing Hour

Add controls to your submissions, and share why you declined a story

Medium publications make Medium go around. We hope these changes give editors more time to work on promising stories they’re excited about and give writers more insights into how to make their stories a great fit for their dream publication.

Two updates to your submission inbox this month:

• You can set optional controls on what stories writers can submit to your publication. For example, you can say, “the story must be at least a 5-minute read,” or “the story must include an image.” As the editor, you can choose to set some, all, or none of these controls. If you do set them, submissions have to clear those criteria before they can submit the story to you. Read more here.
• When you decline a submission, you can now choose an optional reason, like “quality concerns” or “not a topic fit,” and that reason gets sent along to the writer in the email letting them know you passed on their story. Read more here.

You can set up submission controls by going to your publication inbox and selecting “View settings.” Decline reasons will appear on any story you individually decline (that is, not with the bulk-decline action.)

Both of these improvements are geared towards helping editors more easily communicate with writers, and hopefully in the long run, end up with more better-fit stories for your publications.

As a writer, I hate the experience of getting a rejection with no context. (And I remember being a new writer trying to learn how to navigate the publication ecosystem — I got a lot of those back then!) As an editor, I remember getting flooded with submissions that just didn’t meet the criteria for the pub I helped edit, Better Marketing, but not having time to leave a private note on all of them (or not being sure if the writer would even read the private note).

With both of these improvements, writers will get much clearer feedback — sometimes before they’ve even submitted! — on what they can do to make their story a better fit for your publication.

• Do I have to provide a reason for declining the story? No, it’s totally optional. The default is no reason given, and you can leave it that way if you’d rather not say why you’re passing on a submission.
• Do I need to set controls on submissions? No, they are also fully optional. Pick and choose the ones that work for your publication.
• Does giving a reason work on bulk decline? No, you can only give a decline reason on individual story submissions.
• Why these reasons and controls? We spoke with editors about the most common reasons they decline stories from their publications. Think there’s one we missed, or have other thoughts you want to share? Send us your feedback here. Both the submission controls and reason for decline features are under active development as we learn from how editors use it.
• Where can I read more about these changes? Read our blog post on submission controls here. Here’s our blog post on the decline reason. For how-tos, the help desk is a great resource–here’s a link on setting your submission controls. If you’re interested in a behind-the-scenes look, Medium engineer Scott Batson wrote about his engineering process in a note on TK. TK is now open to Friends of Medium.
• What’s next? More ways to help editors manage their inbox! Anything specific you’d love? Raise a ticket with your feedback. The last few months of improvements have all been based on the feedback editors have shared with us. We’re excited to do more work to make submissions and publications better.

External readers are now prompted to follow you when you share stories

Now, when you share a story externally to another platform like Reddit or LinkedIn, logged-in readers will be prompted to follow you, as the tastemaker who shared the story.

Here’s how this works: I’m browsing Reddit, when I see someone shared a Medium link. I click on the link because it matches my interests, and I’m prompted to follow the person who shared the link. I do so.

Now when that person reposts, claps for, or highlights stories, those stories will also be recommended to me on Medium. My reading experience is better because I’m following not just great writers, but the people who discover and recommend new great writers, too.

Why prompt readers to follow the person sharing the story? Because readers value curation. Finding someone who can reliably recommend great stories is a huge benefit for many readers, so we wanted to give options to those readers to continue getting great recommendations when someone shares a valuable story.

Medium editors play a huge role in helping Medium recommend stories to readers, so we want to give readers more ways to stay up to date with what you’re reading, curating, and sharing from your publication and beyond on Medium.

A clearer view into your Editor Partner Program status

We heard from a lot of you that the Editor Partner Program qualification dashboard didn’t provide enough information about how to qualify for the Editor Partner Program. We’ve replaced it with a more detailed view that shows exactly where your publication stands against each qualifying criteria.

You can check it out anytime under Manage publication > Editor Partner Program.

Read more about that here.

Nominate a fellow editor for an Editor Award

Do you know an editor who takes a story to the next level, consistently uplifts newer writers, or champions voices that might otherwise go unheard?

Nominate them for an Editor Award here.

The categories are:

• Story Whisperer Award: For the editor whose notes consistently uncover hidden potential in a piece.
• Champion of Emerging Voices Award: For the editor who consistently uplifts newer or lesser-known writers.
• Community Builder Award: For the editor who cultivates a supportive, collaborative environment across the team.
• Editor’s Editor Award: For the editor other editors turn to for advice, second reads, or mentorship.
• Equity in Action Award: For the editor who intentionally supports and amplifies underrepresented writers, helping ensure a broader range of perspectives are seen and heard across Medium.

Nominations for this year’s Editor Awards are still open until August 28th. Winners will be celebrated as part of the closing ceremony at Medium Day on September 18. Read more on that below.

Medium Day 2026 is September 18

Registration is open for Medium Day, our free virtual event on Friday, September 18. This year’s lineup includes a session built specifically for you: Publication Tools for Editors, a demo of what’s new and what’s coming for managing your publication.

We’ll also be announcing this year’s Editor Award winners during the closing ceremony, so if you nominated someone (or you’re hoping to be surprised), tune in live.

Register here.

Call for September prompts

If your publication is running writing prompts for September, tag me in the story (Zulie @ Medium) or reply to this email, and I’ll include them in next month’s Writer Newsletter.

If you published an August prompt that’s not on the list, let me know and I’ll add it. Thakn you to all the editors who sent me theirs already!

Upcoming events

The Writers Circle: August 13th, 12pm ET. Prompts, writing time, and a chance to connect with other writers and editors.

Writing Hour: Every Thursday, 10am ET.

Medium 101 Webinar: Wednesdays at 12 pm ET and Fridays at 9 am ET. Send your newer writers to learn about formatting, topics, images, and all the basics.

That’s it for August. As always, reply with questions, feedback, or anything you’d like to see in a future newsletter.

Happy editing,

– Zulie @ Medium

Editor Newsletter: Give a reason for declining, a clearer EPP dashboard, and Editor Awards was originally published in The Medium Handbook on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Hi writers,

What’s new on Medium this month? We’ve been focusing on small improvements that make Medium better for reading, writing, and working on publications.

TL;DR version of this newsletter:

• We moved topic pills to the top of your story to give readers more control and increase reads — it worked!
• Add a note to your repost (plus exclusive stats for newsletter readers, basically readers are more likely to stay and read a story when it’s in their feed due to being reposted, versus any other reason)
• Stories now automatically include a Table of Contents
• Pub editors can now set controls on what stories can be submitted to their pubs (think needs a subtitle, image, minimum read time) and can optionally add a reason why they declined a story.
• Nominate an editor for an Editor Award
• The Medium Day 2026 schedule is live, and we have a new FoM-exclusive track, focused on writing in the age of AI. Read more here.
• Readers are now prompted to follow you when you share stories externally
• Get your August 2026 writing prompts here
• Upcoming events–Medium 101, The Writers Circle, and Writing Hour

Topics are now at the top of your story

We’re always working on getting better story recommendations to readers. We’ve been exploring more reader-focused control (like the topic muting we introduced earlier this year) to help make sure the right stories reach the readers most likely to read them.

You may have noticed that the topic buttons are now at the top of your stories, and are more obviously clickable for readers to follow. They used to be at the bottom of a story.

The theory was that by making them more prominent and follow-able, readers would take more control in following topics they liked, which would in turn improve their recommendations.

Friendly reminder: always add up to five good-fit topics to your stories! They help Medium recommend those stories to relevant readers. More info here.

The early experiment results were very promising, showing an increase in readers following topics and, more importantly, reading more of your stories on Medium. So we’re releasing it more widely.

It’s a small change, but just one of many we’re making to make the Medium reading experience better, and bring more readers to your stories.

Add context to your repost with a note

When we launched reposting earlier this year, the idea was simple: if you read something great, you could share it with your followers in one click. You all jumped on it, and have used the repost feature over 250,000 times!

Now, starting last month, you can add a note when you repost a story. Personally, I’ve been using them to add context on why I think it’s a great story for my followers to read. Kind of like the note librarians or book store employees leave on books!

I’ve loved seeing all the different ways readers and writers are using reposts. Some are just simple recommendations like, “Worth reading.” Others add extra context from their personal lived experience as to why it’s a great read. Some folks add their favorite quote from the piece as their repost note. Editors in particular are using reposts as a way to drive more readers to their pub’s stories.

My personal favorite reader response so far: “Great addition to my favorite new feature, thanks Medium.” (Thank you, @lindalockeca!)

Read the full announcement.

As newsletter readers, I wanted to share some exclusive fun stats with you:

• Viewers who come from clicking on a reposted story in their feed read a story about 28% more often than average, compared to other reasons for clicking on a story in their feed.
• Repost viewers tend to stay on a story about 36% less often than average readers.

Basically, when readers get that extra context about why to read a story, even if the extra context is just, “This person in your network recommends this story,” they are more likely to read a story. This hypothesis is a big reason why we invested time and resources into building reposting, so it’s great to see it confirmed. We’re continuing to work on making reposting better, so keep your eyes open for more to come.

All stories with headers and subheaders now have a built-in Table of Contents

Read the blog post here, read the behind-the-scenes engineering post here, and if you’re a TK user, read the behind-the-scenes-behind-the-scenes note here.

Basically, it’s been possible to make a Table of Contents for your stories with headers and subheaders as long as Medium has existed, but it was really hacky and a pain to do, or required a third-party Chrome extension.

Now, all stories with headers and subheaders have a Table of Contents automatically built into the story.

We got some great questions on the announcement blog post that I wanted to answer here:

1. Do I have to do anything to add this to my story? No! It’s built automatically using headers and subheaders from your story.
2. Will this affect my earnings? No. We looked into this extensively before and after launching since obviously that’s top of mind for many Medium writers. Read more in the engineering blog if you’re interested.
3. Will this work retroactively on older stories? If they have headers and subheaders, yes.
4. When is this coming on mobile? Right now this is web-only, but we’re planning on releasing a mobile version soon. The engineering blog has more details.
5. How can I see the table of contents in my draft before I publish? If you view it as a draft link, you’ll be able to get a preview. Go to the top three dots of the story you’re working on, click “Share draft link,” and paste that link into your browser window.

What’s new for publication submissions?

I am fanatical about the benefits of submitting to publications. It’s, hands down, the best and quickest way to get interested readers to your story, as well as a way to get feedback — positive and negative! — on your writing, and a place to join a community. I’ve written about the pros and cons of submitting to publications here, if you’re interested.

Side note: writers always ask, “Is it required?” No, definitely not! Many, many stories on Medium find their audience without publications. But it’s so much easier and a much nicer experience if you get your story accepted to a publication that has a pre-existing audience of followers who care about your story’s topic.

Back when I edited Better Marketing, in my pre-Medium employee days, we’d often get submissions that just didn’t even clear the lowest possible bar. But I also remember, as a new writer, having no idea what a publication was or how they worked and not understanding why I was getting rejected so much.

What’s the answer to both problems? More communication. Here’s what’s new:

New submission controls

Starting a week ago, editors are able to set controls on their submissions. For example, editors could say: your story needs to have a subtitle, be at least a certain length, include an image, before you can even submit. We chose these based on speaking with editors about the most common reasons they reject stories.

You’ll be able to see the checklist on the pre-publish page, just before you submit. Of course, I highly recommend you carefully read the submission guidelines first, but I know from experience that it’s sometimes easy to miss a particular requirement, or it gets changed and you don’t realize. Now you can easily meet the basic requirements editors want for stories in their pub.

Read more here.

New optional decline reasons

Second, and this is hot off the press, editors can now (optionally) give feedback to explain why they rejected your story. That reason, if editors choose to give one, is included in the email you get on your submission’s status.

Again, we hear frequently from writers how frustrating it is to get a “no” with no reason why. And we hear from editors that they just don’t have time to leave private notes on all stories that aren’t a great fit, or that writers don’t see the private notes.

Read more here.

Medium publications make Medium go around. We hope these changes give editors more time to work on promising stories they’re excited about and give writers more insights into how to make their stories a great fit for their dream publication.

Nominate an editor for an Editor Award

Do you know an editor who takes your story to the next level, consistently uplifts newer writers, or champions voices that might otherwise go unheard?

Nominate them for an Editor Award here.

The categories are:

• Story Whisperer Award: For the editor whose notes consistently uncover hidden potential in a piece.
• Champion of Emerging Voices Award: For the editor who consistently uplifts newer or lesser-known writers.
• Community Builder Award: For the editor who cultivates a supportive, collaborative environment across the team.
• Editor’s Editor Award: For the editor other editors turn to for advice, second reads, or mentorship.
• Equity in Action Award: For the editor who intentionally supports and amplifies underrepresented writers, helping ensure a broader range of perspectives are seen and heard across Medium.

Nominations for this year’s Editor Awards are still open until August 28th. Winners will be celebrated as part of the closing ceremony at Medium Day on September 18. Read more on that below.

Who’s speaking at Medium Day 2026?

The whole theme of Medium Day this year is discovery. This year’s speaker lineup will let you take that opportunity in a dozen different directions. Learn from scientists, founders, poets, and a few hundred years of combined Medium experience, all in one day.

On September 18, close to 100 writers, experts, and Medium staffers will lead sessions across four tracks: Craft, Perspectives, Platform, and Community. Here’s a first look at who’s speaking.

Register now!

We’re also launching a fifth track, exclusive to Friends of Medium, all about different perspectives on how to write in the era of AI. Hear from:

• Principal designer manager Ana Sofia Gonzalez on building an intentional AI design framework that helps you delegate and accelerate the ideas only you can bring
• Writer, entrepreneur and investor John Battelle on navigating the shift to an AI-driven web — how you get discovered, stay relevant, and why asking good questions is your edge
• Data scientist Dr. Chantel A. Perry on how developers can build AI systems reliable enough to take their name on
• Executive coach Ed Batista and coach and founder Tarikh Korula on how they turned 20 years of writing into an AI coach and what they learned in the process
• Writer Joan Westenberg on why caring is your competitive edge in the AI era and how to use it in practice.
• Principal software engineer Moishe Lettvin on how to use Skills in Medium’s new app TK to turn your messy to-dos into simple automated tasks that handle themselves

Read more here.

Readers are now prompted to follow you when you share stories

Now, when you share a story externally to another platform like Reddit or LinkedIn, logged-in readers will be prompted to follow you, as the tastemaker who shared the story.

Here’s how this works: I’m browsing Reddit, when I see someone shared a Medium link. I click on the link because it matches my interests, and I’m prompted to follow the person who shared the link. I do so.

Now when that person reposts, claps for, or highlights stories, those stories will also be recommended to me on Medium. My reading experience is better because I’m following not just great writers, but the people who discover and recommend new great writers, too.

Why prompt readers to follow the person sharing the story? Because readers value curation. Finding someone who can reliably recommend great stories is a huge benefit for many readers, so we wanted to give options to those readers to continue getting great recommendations when someone shares a valuable story.

We know many of you play a huge role in helping Medium recommend stories to readers, so we want to give readers more ways to stay up to date with what you’re reading.

August Writing Prompts

Thanks, as always, to the editors who pull these together! If there are any I missed, don’t hesitate to email me or tag me in your prompt story.

Here’s the list of August 2026 writing prompts from Medium editors.

Upcoming events

The Writers Circle: August 13th, 12pm ET. Prompts, writing time, and a chance to connect with other writers and editors.

Writing Hour: Every Thursday, 10am ET.

Medium 101 Webinar: Wednesdays at 12 pm ET and Fridays at 9 am ET. Send your newer writers to learn about formatting, topics, images, and all the basics.

That’s it this month.

Happy writing,

Zulie @ Medium

Writer Newsletter: This small design experiment increased reads on Medium was originally published in The Medium Handbook on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

You don’t need a plan. You don’t need a prompt. You don’t even need to turn your camera on. You just need an hour to write.

Writing Hour is Medium’s weekly, no-frills co-writing session on Zoom. Every Thursday, you can join a quiet Zoom full of writers, listen to some lo-fi music, and actually write.

How it works

• Show up. Join late or leave early, it’s your hour to use however you need.
• Cameras and mics off by default. This isn’t a meeting. Nobody’s watching you type.
• No prompts required. Work on your draft, your newsletter, your novel, your notes-to-self. Whatever you’re writing, this is the space for it.
• Share what you’re writing in the chat. Feeling chatty? Say hi to your fellow writers in the chat or focus on the page.

Register Now!

Bring your coffee, mute your notifications, and let’s write.

– Medium Team

P.S.: We’re also looking for writers like you to host one of future Medium Writing Hours! If that sounds like something you might be interested in, let us know.

Join Medium Writing Hour was originally published in The Medium Handbook on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.