Dear Illumination Readers — From Infant to Legend in A Year’s Time
The story of Dr Mehmet Yildiz’s baby — Illumination
“Child prodigies, as a rule, are the children of parents with rich imagination. “ — Jean Cocteau
I couldn’t agree more with the above quote when it comes to the case of the publication Illumination. “Rich imagination” only begins to describe the man that Dr. Yildiz is. He’s a visionary who set out on a mission to create a democratic platform for writers on Medium.
Ironically, from my eight months or so on Medium, it seems quite clear to me that the goal of Medium itself was to be a democratic platform that provides value to readers and an opportunity for writers to showcase their work, and also (more recently) be remunerated for it.
Which would mean that all publications that are a subset of Medium should also be doing the same. However, that was far from the truth.
Each publication that’s on Medium has its own rules and methodologies to pick writers, stories, themes that they like. And so, newbies don’t always find it easy to find a home in a publication with a huge following.
But how was a new publication going to ever battle with the big ones who’ve been around for years? Honesty, persistence, and true inclusion.
Those simple values in my mind are what Illumination began with. The only rule that the publication has in terms of accepting writers and stories is simple — you follow the rules of Medium, and we want nothing else. Well, simple, isn’t it? Don’t break the platform or cause us to do so, and we’ll get along just well.
But, hey, wouldn’t that mean thousands of writers and hundreds of stories to review every day? How’s a single man going to deal with that?
Enter, volunteering editors.
Another characteristic of Dr. Yildiz is his humility. I’ll give you my own example — I received the kindest of messages one day on one of my stories inviting me to be an editor at the publication — after only having published a few stories on Medium. I was no star writer but clearly, Dr. Yildiz saw something there and was humble enough to make an offer.
He was clear that I didn’t have any obligation to join or to a certain “time commitment” — it was truly voluntary.
And so I joined the crew. I had only seen these names as writers and editors of Illumination before, and had been in awe of the work they do — and here I was, a noob, right in the middle of the action. Britni Pepper — the seductress who knew how to draw her readers into a surreal world of story-telling, Tree Langdon — the poetess who had her poems curated more often than I’ve seen any other writer, Dew Langrial, the queen of editing and skillful writing, and of course the “true” maverick himself — Dr Mehmet Yildiz.
The best part?
The most humble, helpful, and collaborative group ever. And that Slack workspace? Like a candy store for a kid who wants to network and learn from fellow writers.
Thousands of writers — established authors, up-and-coming stars, and noobs like myself. You name a “type” of a writer and a “genre” and I’ll be sure to find you a match in that group.
As much as I’d assigned everyone an imaginary personality — most of them I thought that were beyond my “reach” — they all happened to be so nice and kind that I never felt like I didn’t belong.
And then the journey from being a noob to a so-called “senior editor” which I still don’t buy that I am but I am told I might be. And the journey of making more and more friends — Holly Kellums, Terry L. Cooper, Ikram Al Mouaswas, Geetika Sethi, Dr. Preeti Singh, GranPa-Festus, Sabana Grande and many many more. The intellectual discussions and debates with Marcus, Liam Ireland, Thewriteyard, Maria Rattray, Noorain Hassan, BMS, and dozens of others — as they’ll know how bad I am at tagging people from my numerous complaints about not being able to maintain “lists.”
The best bit? I have a friend in so many cities of the world to grab a coffee (or water or a tea or a beer) with whenever I am visiting. Believe it or not I’ve had enough invites already from people you would think of as “strangers” in a regular world — but not in the trusting, friendly world of ILLUMINATION.
From zero followers to close to 100k, the journey wasn’t always easy.
We were slandered by fools, questioned by intellectuals, supported by superstars, but I’ll say truly built by the “commoner” of Medium — EVERY writer that contributed, or didn’t, to Illumination — but is a part of the Medium ecosystem.
We exist because you made us. And that’s one thing we’ll never forget. So if you ever read an “entitled” or “snobbish” response from an editor, just let us know — because there are things that get lost in translation, but our intention is never that. If you have a voice, we have the platform to amplify it. If you have a view, we’re here to share it. If you have an opinion, we may not agree, but we’ll be sure to put it forward.
Just don't, and I request, please don’t deviate from the principles that Medium stands for and the guidelines it puts forward. Together, we turned 1, together we’ll cross many more milestones.