9 Stories Our Editors Can’t Stop Thinking About in 2020

Medium staffers highlight their favorite stories of the year

Throughout 2020, we’ve read about a bajillion stories all across Medium. Thanks to all who published, for writing stories that inspired us, gave us advice, and in general, helped us get through the year. With 2021 fast approaching, we’re taking a look back and highlighting a few standout stories that we think you’d appreciate too. We asked our peers at Medium for their year-end picks from writers across Medium and put together this 2020 roundup of your amazing stories. Here’s to many, many more in the next year.

“What I Would Have Worn to My Mother’s Funeral,” Elizabeth Hackett

In a year where time has stretched itself beyond meaning and the bigness of loss has burned us all out, I’ve found that a lot of the writing on grief hasn’t always resonated. This year’s grief is universal in many ways, because we’re all experiencing it, but stories of an entire nation in mourning lose the specificity of grief, and that specificity is what makes grief both painful and beautiful.

All this to say, Elizabeth Hackett’s writing on her personal corner of grief stayed with me. If you want me to be technical and say why I liked it as a piece of writing, I can tell you it was sentimental without being cliché, it was well-paced, and creatively structured. If you want me to tell you why I liked it as a human being, I’ll say that it gave meaning and weight to a seemingly mundane moment, simply picking out an outfit, and it also gave space for deep, heartbreaking, specific grief in the loss of her mother.

In a year that forced us into isolation, where our people were often far away, I am so grateful that Elizabeth shared a piece of herself with the world. — Sam Zabell, Audience Development Manager

“How Dare You?: Kim Kardashian’s 40th Birthday, an Investigation,” Vicky Mochama

In October, Kim Kardashian West announced she was taking her “closest inner circle” on vacation. To a private island. For her 40th birthday. In 2020. Sounds normal, right? Yeah, pretty normal.

I sort of caught onto the meme late (“Why is everyone posting jokes about going to a private island?” I thought as I scrolled through Twitter alone). When I did, I thought it was funny… then slightly horrifying. Also, where did they go? Also also, what were they thinking? I still don’t know what they were thinking (I can guess) but now I know where they went. Or at least I’m pretty sure, thanks to Vicky Mochama’s expert analysis of Kim and Kendall’s Twitter and Instagram feeds.

Want to match two photos of the same island bar? Want to sift through Kendall Jenner’s selfies trying to pick out which resort bathroom she’s standing in? Track down exactly which private jet the Kardashians rented (sorry, “chartered”)? Have you lost your mind and would prefer to just rabbit-hole your way through a list of things rich people do during a pandemic? Reading Mochama’s investigative reporting was thrilling for me. Maybe you’ll enjoy it, too. — Harris Sockel, Deputy Editor of Human Parts

“The Jell-O Salad Recipe That Made Everyone Mad At Me Last Year,” Maya Kosoff

Great writing grows from a great subject. But a great subject doesn’t need to be existential in scope or even inherently remarkable to very many people: It simply needs to matter a lot to you. The reader will follow.

This is exactly why I loved Maya Kosoff’s story about a beloved (and, I’ll say it, fairly gross-looking) Jell-O salad recipe. Deep in the creamy, pear-stuffed gelatin you will find a story filled with heart and humanity — a story about family and acceptance and marching forward amid unfathomable darkness to construct a seafoam-tinted dessert that means everything, even though, at a glance, it would seem to mean nothing at all. — Damon Beres, EIC of OneZero

“536 AD — the Worst Year in History,” Saamir Ansari

2020 has been a dumpster fire. Between the consistent themes like Covid-19, racism, and the worst president ever, you have one-off terrible moments like murder hornets, celebrity passings, and Chet Hanks cosplaying a Jamaican. It’s hard not to think that we’ve through the worst year in history. But Saamir Ansari argues differently; in his post “536 AD — the Worst Year in History,” he argues that 2020 isn’t even top 5 on the “all-bad era” rankings.

I love this story for several reasons. One, I love how he approached it technically; it’s quick and gets straight to the point while avoiding leaving the reader unsatisfied. And two, anyone who knows me knows that I’m a sucker for a good history lesson. And in a time that feels like the worst time ever, I found it helpful to contextualize 2020 in relation to the eras that came before. I felt better about my year leaving this story than I felt coming in, and that’s really what it’s all about. — Shaq Cheris, Editor of Creators Hub

“Maintaining Professionalism in the Age of Black Death Is… a Lot,” Shenequa Golding

My favorite thing about the platform is coming across writers who can perfectly articulate everything I might be thinking or feeling. This summer was a stressful one. As if the pandemic wasn’t already turning life asunder, the deaths of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, and George Floyd; the global protests; and the subsequent conversations about race, policing, and justice made it even harder to feel like I could function like a normal human being.

Medium writer Shenequa Golding captured this feeling in her essay “Maintaining Professionalism in the Age of Black Death Is… a Lot.” She writes about the exhaustion inherent with navigating life as a Black person in America and how it’s almost impossible (and shouldn’t be asked of us!) to go about business as usual, especially as we may be actively mourning, biting back rage, or living in fear.

Her words make it easy to feel seen and to know that if we’re feeling fired up or even burned out by racism in America, we’re not alone. — Jolie A. Doggett, Platform Editor ZORA

“Invite Your Writing Demons in for Tea,” Gavin Lamb, PhD

If we talk long enough, eventually meditation will come up. For like 10 years it was my New Year’s resolution, and finally a couple years ago I started to sit more regularly because of anxiety. It doesn’t “solve” everything, but it helps. So I keep going. Over the months and years, I’ve noticed how I can get closer to what I feel, how I feel, and maybe even start to see why. There’s a healing happening. I found my creative work moves in a direction that explores all of this. This year it’s been especially helpful.

A story I keep coming back to is “Invite Your Writing Demons in for Tea” by Gavin Lamb, PhD. Drawing inspiration from Tibetan Buddhism and Joli Jensen’s book Write No Matter What, Lamb offers an approach to overcome challenges in the writing process. When you’re stuck, the advice here is to pause, and notice what’s happening. Notice the beliefs coming up. “Don’t be judgemental of the beliefs you discover. Simply notice their presence.” Approach them with a nonjudgmental curiosity, and you will discover more about yourself and what you need. I love how this advice combines ideas from meditation and healing with the creative (and difficult) practice of writing. As we write, we discover more about ourselves and grow. — Kawandeep Virdee, Editor of Creators Hub

“My Heart: a short but true story” Brooke Hammerling

My friend Brooke Hammerling is a natural born blogger. Six days a week Brooke’s a communications professional, but on that seventh day she publishes Pop Culture Mondays, her weekly missive to her “darling pop culture junkies” that rounds up of “all the news you’re too embarrassed to admit you don’t know… or too embarrassed to admit you DO.” To wit: on a recent Monday she went deep on the “hot priest” Carl Lentz, Elliot Page’s transition, “Bad Romance” lip syncing on TikTok, and actors wearing masks on Law & Order SVU.

As a pop culture junkie, most weeks I’m embarrassed to admit I do know what she’s blogging about. But to be honest I don’t read Brooke for the news, I read it for her voice. Her posts are like having her on the phone, delivering piping hot takes on the absurd joy that is pop culture in 2020.

Which made her post from late September, “My Heart: a short but true story” such a shocker.

On Thursday, October 1st I am checking into the Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center to have open heart surgery. I am getting my aortic valve replaced with a cow’s valve and my aorta replaced with this thing called a Dacron Graft. It’s super sci-fi and cool and I will be part cow and part robot JUST LIKE I HAVE ALWAYS DREAMED OF.

In the post she tells the story of how as a kid she was diagnosed with Severe Aortic Stenosis (which involved her literally chasing a boy), how she ignored it in her twenties and thirties, and then the recent shock of her cardiologist telling her she needed open heart surgery ASAP. “I drank a SHIT-ton of tequila that night,” she writes. (Can relate.)

As a long-time blogger, I’ve always struggled with voice. What’s the right tone? How much of myself to let through? Where do I draw the line between the public persona and my private life? If those questions trouble Brooke, she never lets it show. Instead she just lets it fly — whether she’s writing about TikTok collabs, or the prospect of getting her chest cracked open on the operating table. And she does it with joy, humor, and love for her darling pop culture junkies. — Michael Sippey, VP Labs

“The Strange Case of ‘Telephone’,” Sydney Urbanek

I love stories where writers act as a tour guide. They escort you down an almost comically narrow rabbit hole of information, answering a question that you never asked or knew you cared about. But once you’ve made it through to the end, that issue suddenly consumes your every thought. Sydney Urbanek perfectly captured that level of niche nuance earlier this year when she dissected the 2009 Lady Gaga/Beyoncé collab, “Telephone.” Urbanek brings a seemingly random pop culture artifact to life, pulling every relevant interview and article available to reconstruct the song and music video’s origin story and legacy. The result is an unexpected delight. Sign me up for more guided tours! — Amanda Sakuma, Senior Editor GEN

“Your Questions Answered: How Have You Overcome Writer’s Block?” Alexander Chee

The only thing writers complain about more than writing is not being able to write. How-to books, Twitter threads, and conference panels are so often filled with screeds against writer’s block that when you stumble upon a truly unique and insightful insight into such a well-worn topic, it can feel truly revelatory. That’s exactly how it felt to read Alexander Chee’s frank but empathic investigation into why writer’s block exists and what we can do to stop it. Chee argues that writer’s block doesn’t come from your creative well running dry, but instead arises from “the fear of humiliating yourself” — the nagging worry that you will write something so dumb and wrong that people stop loving you and start hating you. Shame and embarrassment are often overlooked amid discussions of ambition, imagination, and work ethic, but as Chee wisely notes, these deepest, simplest emotions are often at the root of our feeling stuck, and they can easily compound upon themselves. “It’s hard enough to have a problem without also being ashamed of the problem,” Chee writes, and as well as being useful writing advice, it’s a good reminder for anyone who’s lived through 2020. It’s often more liberating to first admit you are embarrassed by your problems — be they loneliness, aimlessness, or grief — than it is to simply hope you can push past them. — Jean-Luc Bouchard, Senior Platform Editor Marker