Daily Success Stories from ILLUMINATION
Rejections May Hurt But…
1718 ILLUMINATION writers are illuminating 14,827 readers!

When you’re following your inner voice, doors tend to eventually open for you, even if they mostly slam at first. — Kelly Cutrone

One of the common sentiments shared by writers is rejection. I have empathy and compassion for writers who experience rejection in their career path. Rejection is a difficult emotion to manage. Many successful people taste rejection. I experienced rejection in all walks of my life. The way I deal with rejection is to re-frame it and not take it personally.
People or organizations set criteria which are not necessarily compelling for life. Not meeting specific criteria does not mean we are not good enough. We simply do not meet their standards. We may, paradoxically, have higher standards. In my recent conversations, two main concerns raised by writers were about being rejected by some publications, and their stories were not being curated. These two rejections are tasted by many writers. Despite all, some writers not only survive but also thrive.
I know reputable writers, with fascinating stories, were rejected, but self-confident writers do not see them as show-stoppers. They acknowledge, accept, and move on. There are many options and means in life that we can convey our valuable messages.
In the big schema of things, these are not real issues. As writers, we have a much more important mission in our lives. In my humble view, it is more valuable and satisfying to touch readers’ intellect, heart, and soul authentically than to be published in a reputable publication or shown on the front page of a platform. With this simple re-framing, rejection can energize us and focus on what matters in life. I learned that rejection was the caffeine for entrepreneurs.
As worst case scenario and for a practical approach, you can consider an interesting view from Jeanette Winterson who pointed out: “I am good at walking away. Rejection teaches you how to reject.”
What did ILLUMINATION writers create today?
Here are some sample stories that we created today. Here is a bundle of stories I was able to add to our distribution list today. I will also add them to our upcoming Newsletter to subscribed members of our publication. Please consider adding comments so that your great stories gain visibility.
New writers who joined ILLUMINATION today
32 new writers joined our publication today. We have 1718 writers supporting ILLUMINATION now. A warm welcome to our new writers: Emily Morgan, David Hope, Sadhana G, Divya Karnani, Tamara Mitrofanova, Aseka Warnakulasooriya, Ethan Eros, Nimisha Gorasia, Aaron Quist, Lex Nickels, Scarla Knight, Infiniti, Taylor Napior, Ilene Kuehl, Ria Tagulinao, Yusra Dahri, Glenn Stok, Jon Turner, Lee Nourse, Michael J. Vowles, Eddy Bishogo, Steven G, Phil Brakefield, Kate Dawn Smith, TheSkepticalStatistician, Juho Bäckman, Steven G, Emily Morgan, David Hope, Sadhana G, Rachel Clifton, TanyaIv.
IMPORTANT NOTE TO NEW WRITERS: To ensure your stories are published on a timely basis, please provide required credits to the photos and extracted information from other sources. This is the most common issue delaying some stories to be published. If you turn off your private messages we have no other mechanism to reach out to you. If your article is not published within 48 hours please contact me from this link.
I received several inquiries from new writers who want to know how to add stories to publication. Please see the attached story providing step by step guidance by our editor Timothy Key.
ILLUMINATION Slack Channel
We created a writer collaboration platform using Slack. We have 350+ members. I added several writers to our Slack channel today. Thank you for the inquires and willingness to join our collaboration and innovation lab. New writers are invited to join our Slack to have a chat and collaborate with other inspiring writers. We discuss editorial matters, Medium policies, content quality, and overall writing skills improvement. You can request an invitation to Slack from this link. Please type Request for Slack on the heading as I have many other requests from this link.
You can check this story from Timothy Key to learn how to use Slack if you haven’t used it before.
New writers, please check our FAQ document for details of our publication. Our submission guidelines and several other useful documents are attached in this story.
Stories Distributed from ILLUMINATION to Medium Topics
Two great stories were distributed to multiple topics today. I found these stories interesting and engaging.
A story by Martina Doleckova was distributed to #LGBTQIA, #equality.
A story by Dr Jeff Livingston was distributed to #family.
As ILLUMINATION hosts an impressive number of high-quality stories distributed to the topics from our creative writers, I compiled those stories. I aim to create awareness for the high-quality stories so that our new writers can leverage these excellent stories, model the styles so that they can improve their stories for increasing chance of curation by Medium curators. You can find the complete list from the attached story. I update it regularly.
Featured Stories
Due to volume of high quality and interesting content submitted to our publication, we featured 12 stories from our creative writers today. These stories will be placed on the front page for 24 hours for easy access.
MaryJo Wagner, PhD
Ann Venkataraman
Britni Pepper
Joanna Henderson
Joe Luca
Carolyn Riker
B. A. Cumberlidge.
Rancell Tapia
Gregory A. Austin
Riku Arikiri
Michael Burg, MD
Simone Imurah
Stories Related to ILLUMINATION
Tim Maudlin
Featured Interview Story on Publication Page
We feature one writer interview story each day. Today, we featured an inspiring interview that I conducted with Martine Weber
Writer Introductions
Meet our writer Francine Fallara
200+ writers introduced themselves in their stories so far. This is an opportunity for our writers to showcase their writing portfolio. I recommend all new writers to introduce themselves in an article. We compile these introductions, keep this resource on the first page of our publication and also share the file with our 14,600+ readers. Please see the attached bio document as an example for creating your bios. Our readers are interested in our writers. If your bio is missing from this list, please leave a comment with your your story link.
I have been interviewing our writers to feature their profile and great stories. I added a few more interview stories today. You can read the interviews from the attached story. If you are a writer on ILLUMINATION and would like to be interviewed, please send a request via this link with title of “Interview Request”.
Content Quality Focus
Our current writers know that we strive for excellence. We aim to increase the quality of your stories and provide an enjoyable reading experience to our followers. Quality is an iterative process. I notice that the quality of our stories is increasing day by day. The curation rate increased.
New writers: please ensure that you check your stories for typos, spelling, and grammar errors before submitting them to the publication. Our readers deserve high quality stories.
We have some volunteering editors who can perform a proof-reading for the writers from the non-English speaking background. You can search for volunteers from our Slack channel. One of the proof-reading tools our writers recommend is Grammarly.
ILLUMINATION Social Media Links
We share our stories in the following platforms. We encourage our new writers to join and follow these links.
Twitter — Facebook — LinkedIn — Flipboard- YouTube- Pinterest
You can also check our syndicated content: Blogs, PublisherSpotlight.
Invitation to writers who may be interested in ILLUMINATION
If you want to join our growing and supportive publication as a writer, please leave a message via this link. We curate valuable content for our readers; we create awareness and visibility of our content to wider audience. We also amplify Medium articles on social media to bring new readers and subscribers.
If you have already applied from different means and not added to the publication yet, please try again by directly writing to me. Some messages are easily lost on articles.
Several new top writers joined us. We have now 1680+ writers. The more the better for our diversity. We aim to appeal to millions providing diverse and insightful content globally.
Please see an article by Timothy Key on writer invitation.






