An Update to the Updated Submission Guidelines for Middle-Pause
We want women to write for us!
(**Updated 1/15/24**) (*Updated 11/10/23*)
Are you a woman in the middle of your life? Navigating work, family, parenting, caregiving, or menopause? Are you an expert in the treatment of issues that are of interest to women?
Write for Middle-Pause and join the conversation. We are looking for articles that focus on or relate to issues women are facing, thinking about, or in the middle of.
For example, I was going through menopause while raising a teen granddaughter in puberty, and caring for an aging parent. Think about that scenario for a moment!
We also want stories of humor, love, managing relationships, joy, trauma, or pain.
At this point in time, we don’t take fiction or erotica. Rants are a real turn-off as well. (Find a way to tell it as a story.) Non-erotic posts about sexuality are welcome. And if your post appears to be a sales promo, we may have to pass. That being said, if in doubt, submit and we’ll sort it out!
New Guideline on Political Stories
While we’ve shied away from overtly political stories up until now, it’s painfully clear how deeply public policy affects our lives, bodies, and freedoms as women. So as of June 30, 2022, we’ve opened up Middle-Pause to personal stories of those impacts.
We’re talking about first-hand experiences. If you’d like some examples, please see Katie Michaelson’s article, You Just Don’t Know What You’ve Started! as well as Aikya Param’s Supreme Court, My Life, and the Law.
We are not looking for discourses or rants, and will continue to evaluate each submission based on its own merits in accordance with our guidelines and the vision of Middle-Pause:
To encourage, inspire, and empower women to lead fulfilled lives.
If we have to pass on your story, we always let you know the reason and invite you to continue submitting.
Submission rules
Please make sure that the stories you submit to us are free of spelling and grammar errors.
We want your best writing so we can help you shine!
We reserve the right to ask you to make content changes prior to accepting your submission. **We reserve the right to make minor changes to your submission without notice. Possible changes include tweaking a title, reformatting section headings and paragraphs, changing a featured image, removing affiliate links, deleting CTAs, and more.**
We prefer posts that are less than 2000 words. If we notice minor typos or spelling errors after submitting, we reserve the right to make those edits.
Please, no AI, profanity, or erotica.
We will run posts through our AI detector if we suspect AI content. We want human stories only!
All submissions must be in compliance with Medium content standards. See below:
At the bottom of your post, do put a bio with your name linked to your Medium profile and a few links so people can connect with you. You’re welcome to include a CTA and/or links to another story in Middle-Pause — yours or a sister writer’s. Please limit the links to three.
However, we draw the line at pushy or salesy, which we realize is hard to define. If we think it’s too much, we’ll let you know and why.
Before you submit any articles to us, please, please, please read the following posts and follow their guidelines. If not, you will be referred back to it by our friendly editors.
If you want to be considered for a boost:
Request to contribute
If you’d like to join the Middle-Pause conversation, please request to be added as a writer. To do this, send an email to
and include your name, your Medium profile link, a sentence or two about what you’d like to write for Middle-Pause.
Submit drafts only
To submit a draft, first request to become a writer (see above section). Once you are added as a writer for Middle-Pause, click on the “…” and you will see the publication name in your list of publications when you create a post.
- You must include one of these four tags: Women, Life, Diversity, or Menopause. No longer include Middle-Pause in the tags.*
We may make these minor changes instead of rejecting an otherwise acceptable submission. However, we still consider each draft on a case-by-case basis. We want to encourage, inspire, and empower you to become better writers!
Questions?
If you have questions or need additional information, email us at [email protected].
We’d love to hear from you!
Peace & Blessings!
Debbie Walker, Meg Stewart, Marilyn Flower, Margie Peterson, Cindy Heath
May The Middle-Pause Be With You!
Here’s my secret weapon to help women in the middle.
Debbie Walker is a great-grandmother, writer, blogger, and the creator of Middle-Pause & Forward Motion, the podcast STOMP!, and has published a 3-book anthology of Middle-Pause writers. Top Writer in Food. Stay in touch at [email protected]; follow her on Facebook; Twitter; Pinterest; & listen to STOMP!
