Writing Tips

The Medium Writers Challenge: All You Need to Know

How to submit, use tags, topics, deadline, and other information

Medium has launched a Writers Challenge. It asked us to participate in 4 prompts at once under this banner.

Let me share what you need to cover to make your post eligible for the challenge.

Brief Introduction to the Challenge

• Medium has provided four writing prompts: Work, Death, Reentry, and Space.
• Judging Criteria:
• 40% Creativity - 30% Originality - 30% Writing Quality
• Submission Deadline: 24th August 2021
• The total value of all prizes: $100,000

- 100 honorable mentions will receive $100 each - 4 finalists will receive $10,0000

• 1 grand prize winner will receive $50,000
• One creator can write one article per topic

The 4 Topics

Reentry

• Reentry can be any experience where you had to come back to something you used to do, or somewhere you used to live or someone.
• This article wants to see what changed in your absence, how you changed, how the same old situation seemed through your changed perspective and your emotions.
• To participate, add the MWC Reentry tag after writing the article

Death

• Death can be about people, relationships, jobs, ideals, and anything else that ceased to exist in your life. Bad habits or negative aspects of life can also wither away.
• This article asks us to share what we have experienced, and how we marked the loss
• To participate, add the MWC Death tag after writing the article

Work

• Work can be an important part of our identity. It can be something that fulfills us. Or it can enable us to pursue other passions or earning sources. Work can also be draining.
• This article wants to know what work means to us. The value of work in our lives, how it has defined us, is there anything like a dream job, is there any moment or person or role that has changed how we work
• To participate, add MWC Work tag after writing the article

Space

• Space can mean many things including living space, personal space, outer space. We change spaces into something useful and memorable.
• This article wants us to write about the role space has played in our lives.
• To participate, add the MWC Space tag after writing the article

Using Tags properly

• Remember to add the mentioned tag properly
• Note that only one submission per creator per tag will be accepted. So, please do not use the same tag in multiple articles.
• You can use 4 other tags in the tag section which are not related to this competition.

Can you self-publish?

• Yes, you can self-publish and publish in any non-Medium publications as per Medium help.

Is there a maximum length?

• There is a minimum length of 500 words for a story.
• No maximum length

When should you write?

• Should you wait till the last week to see & learn from other submissions? Or do you want to share early so that judges have more time with your article? It is ultimately your call
• My suggestion is to take time to prepare and then write. Do not procrastinate and create drafts as you go.

How can you read other submitted articles?

• Go to search option on top of Medium page
• Search the name of the tag like “MWC Work”
• Click on Tags and select MWC Work Tag
• You will see the page with all submissions. You can click on trending, latest or best to see which article is doing well. However, this is not an indication of which one will eventually win.

You can see that 190 people have already submitted their work under this tag.

Let me know if you have any questions in the comment section.

Happy writing and best of luck!