Monster Alley Is Looking For Writers
Reimagined and updated!

The Alley has been around for over a year now, but much of the themes from the beginning are no longer present today. In fact, the act of following people alone has changed so much in the last 12 months it’s not even a requisite for getting into the MPP!
Gaining followers is still incredibly important — and that’s why Monster Alley is adapting to the new Medium order in kind.
Monster Alley Topics Change
From here on, articles published in the Alley will fit within these themes:
- News About Publications (on or off Medium)
- Publication Promotions
- Writing Tips
- Writing Opportunities
- Writing Prompts
- Writing Challenges
- Freelance Writing
- Personal Stories About Writing
- Personal Stories About Publications
- Personal Stories About Freelancing
You get the idea. Fiction stories, art, music, food, and poetry will be referred to Monster Café. As for finance, crypto, health, and other subjects not included, I implore that publication editors and owners consider writing a promotional article on Monster Alley!
Why This Change?
The original goal of Monster Alley was always to help bring people together, to connect writers with readers and other writers. Since the changes Medium announced recently, we’ve reimagined how Monster Alley could be of better service to its writers and readers. The result was a focus on creating a space for publications to be found, promoted, and seen without the algorithm.
Not to replace the algorithm, mind you. Simply to expand awareness alongside Medium’s efforts to promote good writing.
Guidelines
Nothing has changed here. I’ll copy/paste the list from the original version:
- Nothing that supports hate, violence, or the like.
- No combining stories about minors or animals and sex or violence.
- No toxic anything (writing about it might be fine, though).
- No unedited or hard-to-understand articles.
If another publication wouldn’t publish it, chances are we won’t either. We may, however, work with you to explain why your submission cannot or will not be published; but reserve the right not to. Life gets busy at times, after all.
Formatting Musts
A few things have changed, but still mostly the same:
- Do have title, subtitle, and picture in that order (kicker optional).
- Do give credit to image creator in the caption (this is a must).
- Do have headings and subheadings where applicable.
- Do have neatly defined paragraphs (walls of text will be rejected or edited).
- Do have in-text links where applicable, in moderation (depends on the length of the article).
- Do have CTA/footer- keep it neat.
- Do submit unpublished articles OR articles less than a week old (this may change at any point).
- Don’t add a chain of embed links (most articles look best with one or less).
- Don’t expect your work to be edited here (it may happen, but don’t expect it).
- Don’t plagiarize!!! (You will be reported.)
- Don’t forget to follow the publication yourself! (Not required, but helpful and appreciated!)
How To Be A Writer
If you’re interested in writing for Monster Alley, sign up to the Monster Alley Discord Server and use the word “brick” in your request. You can also take your chances commenting the request on this article, but Discord will have a much quicker response time. Writers will not be accepted without the word “brick” used somewhere, somehow, in the same message, regardless of method.
Make sure to include your Medium username (the @ part of your profile) so I can add you.
Also, please let us know what kind of articles you plan to focus on. Do you have a burning interest in researching or reviewing different publications? Are you pumped up about writing techniques and styles? Have you caught the prompt or challenge bug? Let us know what you’re excited to bring to the fray!
Submitting An Article
When you’re ready to submit an article, click on the “…” at the top right and select “Add To Publication” from the drop down list.
Remember to save the selection! If you click outside the list, the selection will not be saved.
The “Publish” button will change to “Submit” when you’ve properly saved the publication selection. Click Submit and complete the process as normal to add tags and wait for a response. Response time is usually within 48 hours, but could be up to 10 days.
Unpublishing
It’s sad to see articles leave, but it happens. Maybe you’re turning your work into a book deal — or perhaps you want to publish it somewhere else. Whatever the case, it’s always your work to do with as you please.
We used to have a 30 day request — and if you are willing to keep the article with us for that long, it is appreciated. However, I understand that things come up. Most publications don’t take previously published articles, though, so double check before you pull an article just in case.
Want To Be An Editor?
Join us on Discord and let us know!
For Current Writers/Editors
First off, sorry for the impending tag spam. It was necessary to make sure everyone was notified of these changes, and I hope you understand.
Second, these changes don’t affect stories retroactively. What was already published here will continue to have a home for as long as you like. This only affects future stories.
To the illustrious editors of Monster Alley (Carrie, Cameron Thomson, eternallymortal, Lorna Dolan, You Good?):
Feel free to add new writers as you see fit; if you’re on the Discord server and you’d like to take a vote on something (suggested changes, for example), we have a poll bot set up — just ask and someone will help you learn how to set one up!
To the amazing writers of Monster Alley (AVWriting, Binky Ink Writing, Eric Monk, Eneysah Davud, Jeff Roush, Madame Roosevelt, Taiwo Favour Odetayo, The Night Bunny, Tom_S_Riordan, Aakanksha, Ailya Waqar Zaman, Anthony David Vernon, Ben Ulansey, Chloe S., E.A. Colquitt, Daphne Peña, Fatima, Jake FM, Giovanni Zúñiga, Denis Gorbunov, Jan Sebastian 🖐👩🦰, KMO, Rita Kind-Envy, Kua Lina, Lorna Dolan, Malini, Mridul Vijay, maité landa, Freddie Eisenberg, Natalie, Nisha Jose, Akua ntiwaa Anti, Quy Langridge-Tien, Rachael Bao, Rozel Chang, Sache Bel, Sieran Lane, Chris Smith, Anne Scherliess, Stephanie Braden, tom, The Lion's Pen, Aurõra, Vincent Baret, Sam W., Yao Liu):
Thank you so much for being part of the first year of this publication! If you’re not interested in writing about any of those topics, you can still stay on as a writer and not submit anything. You never know, one day you may find a story that vibes here again!
For those of you that write fiction, or about art, music, food, poetry, etc., I invite you to check out Monster Café. 😉
If you do decide to leave Monster Alley, understand that it pulls all your stories from the publication. No hard feelings, though. Your time here was appreciated, and we at the Alley wish you the best of luck wherever you go!
Until next time, follow yourself, always!
Hey, look: a monthly newsletter from TAM~ One email, a wealth of reads!