Scrittura’s Reading Culture

The Art of Respectful Engagement

When I took over Scrittura from the talented Shaan Sood almost two years ago, I had a vision: I wanted Scrittura to be a place where I wanted to read what was published. The kind of work I want to engage with is writing with strong images. I love it when I read a piece and get a sense that the writer is really grappling with or feeling their chosen subject. I want to read quality work, not just drafts that are blown out in a couple minutes and sent to me the same day. I began by taking time to edit pieces, trying to make the quality stand-out from that other sort of writing that I don’t want to read.

Today, this is still very much the vision I have for Scrittura, and my editorial team (past and present) have all resonated with this vision. In addition, though, I want Scrittura to be a place where you want to read. You’re all aware that Medium is flooded with weak pieces of poetry. Recent changes on Medium (and some older ones), haven’t really served the poets well, nor are they helping readers (new and current) discover our work. This is unfortunate, not least because, last I checked, there’s more than 100,000 people who write with the “Poetry” tag regularly/semi-regularly. That’s a lot of poetry!

At Scrittura, we believe we can actively work towards creating a positive, mutually engaged, and supportive reading culture—an inspiring publication to both write for and read in — by paying more attention to the art of respectful engagement. In what follows, I discuss how reading here impacts both you and us. Also, I want to highlight how your engagement with us is something that shows respect to the editors here, who often spend considerable time evaluating, improving, and formatting your work to be Scrittura-ready.

As you read, I would like each of you to think about how it feels if only one person, or a handful, clap/highlight/comment (how we define “engagement”) a piece you feel passionately about and worked hard on. When you look at your earnings, and see that piece is only notching .06 cents or less, how does that feel?

We’re going to be getting more vocal about respectful engagement because we believe in Scrittura’s vision, even if things on Medium feel a bit shaky. Our stats continue to climb, and people still want to write with us. So. Let’s talk about what it means to be respectfully engaged in this publication — what fake engagement does, and what we hope this approach will do for you and for us.

What does respectful engagement mean/entail?

The art (and importance) of respectful engagement in this publication can’t be understated. Medium is, for all that it could be, a social media platform. This means that there is a lot of “quid pro quo” going on: people stop reading you, occasionally, if you’re not reading them, and vice versa. Now, of course this isn’t ideal: you want to be read because you feel you’re putting up really solid work. However, this doesn’t always (or necessarily, anyway) happen organically.

It’s heartbreaking to see some of the stats on amazing stories, poems and prose-poems that really should be getting a lot more views and reads than they are. Moving forward, we’d like to see improvement in supportive reading from and between our writers and editors — who are (including myself) also writers within Scrittura. A slight tangent here, but the clap icon isn’t like the thumbs-up on Facebook: you can clap up to fifty times for a piece you’re reading on Medium.

Respectful engagement doesn’t mean just reading when you know someone is reading you. Respectful engagement can be about learning and improving your writing by reading writers who bring different strengths and experiences to their work. If you’re submitting to our popular prompts, respectful engagement means remembering to check out your fellow writer’s responses — that’s how we all learn and grow as a writing and reading community.

So, at a minimum, clap and highlight work you appreciate. Leave comments when a piece really inspires you. Engage! Because we all know how positive comments on our work can make our day, encourage us to keep writing. Right?

Now, I do my absolute damnedest to read, clap, and highlight every piece in Scrittura; if you go through our archive, you’ll see my name on nearly every piece. We’re all in different time zones, but I know that my editors do their best to get to most, as well.

I want to support your work, but by the same token, when I’ve spent time editing someone’s work and they can’t be bothered to read anything else on Scrittura, I feel like something is wrong.

Why do you want to write here?

I’ve pointed this out before, when you try to publish in a print journal, they nearly all say, “Read back/current issues to find out what we’re looking for.” Anyone who’s attempted traditional publication has to have seen this. Why should it be different here? These are important questions, and we’re asking them because we think the answers to them will improve the reading culture.

Frequently, when new contributors email me, they cite Scrittura’s quality writing and the critical processes we promote. Sometimes, they mention your amazing pieces as inspiration. Nothing wrong with that, right?

Let’s take a look at what the other kind of engagement, “fake” engagement does, how it erodes earnings as well as your stats in general.

The Harm of “Fake Engagement”:

In July this year, Scrittura editor, Melissa Coffey wrote an article detailing some of the harm that fake engagement does, not just for one person, but for all of us (as she notes in her subtitle). I highly recommend you reading the article to get a fuller sense, the broader scope of the problem, and how it affects you and your visibility and, actually, your earnings on Medium.

The salient point I’d like to emphasize here (because I won’t go as deep into detail as she does) is when Melissa writes:

The practice of intentionally faking engagement hurts us all. It definitely hurts the writers who are writing hard, reading genuinely and who care about their connections here — writers who (I fervently believe) are in the majority. It also hurts Medium as an entity and a concept — if overall reads are diminishing, then their model may be perceived as not financially viable and things may change for all writers for the worse.

It’s really not respectful to the people who do work hard in this enterprise, and gods know, a lot of you are writing here, in Scrittura. I know for a fact that Scrittura hosts a huge swath of great literary material. Our contributors are fantastic and reading here is not much of a hardship.

I believe fake engagement is detrimental, as Melissa notes, to everyone. Not engaging says nothing about the quality of a piece, but says a lot about the quality of the reader. Reading better, reading consciously can spark creativity and give you ideas for your own work.

Changing the Culture:

Let’s work on making Scrittura a leader in the kinds of reading and writing you want to be engaged in, the kind of supportive and interconnected culture that fosters creativity, and helps us all find our best literary lights.

A strong editorial team is crucial to this vision. I believe I have selected editors who are not only strong in their critical capacities, but are fantastic writers themselves. We, the editors, are engaging with you and your work, sharing and doing what we can to promote your best work. It’s important to remember that the editors here are volunteering our time and energy to help you present the strongest work possible, increasing your chances of curation (which should help your follows, improving your own engagement).

After all, the time we spend reading your piece and offering suggestions and publishing and engaging with you, could have been spent doing our own reading on Medium or writing. It seems cold, then, when an editor tells me they’ve spent an hour or more working with a writer, who then can’t be bothered to look at (never mind respectfully engage with) any of that editor’s work over a month or longer span of time. The amount of time it takes for you to read a few of our pieces is still far less than the average amount of time it takes for us to work on yours.

We expect, then, our writers to follow the publication, follow the editors (J.D. Harms, Melissa Coffey, and Zay Pareltheon) and at least some of your co-contributors.

Think about how you feel about fake readership: do you feel that’s respectful, necessary, a place you want to go?

The Art of Respectful Engagement

To summarize, respectful engagement includes:

• Engaged and authentic reading in our pub— if you value writing for Scrittura, please support the pub by reading in Scrittura
• Reading and engaging with other prompt responses when you submit your own response
• Clapping and highlighting at a minimum on pieces. Even two or three highlights will show you’re engaging more than just clapping
• Commenting when work really inspires you!
• Remembering to appreciate the work editors do here by reading & engaging with their contributions
• Thinking of Scrittura as a community — consider how you can play a positive role in this community

Let’s all get invested here and make Scrittura a really great place to write and read! We all want to feel supported. Rock on, write on, and read on!

J.D. Harms 2021

*With many thanks to Melissa Coffey for her valuable input & editorial comments.