What We’re Reading: We asked for your stories and you delivered
From Women’s History Month to pandemic retrospectives, here’s a look at what you’ve shared on Medium lately
We asked and you delivered. You suggested essays for our Women’s History Month list. You told us your pandemic stories. You applied to our Verified Author program.
To that end, we’ve been including your work in our “Staff Picks” story list celebrating remarkable women for Women’s History Month. These pieces are essential, and eye-opening; please keep them coming. I’d also like to resurface a series that recognized one historically-overlooked group of women: Black authors. The Zora Canon was a first-of-its-kind collection of the greatest books written by African American women, assembled in collaboration with a blue-ribbon panel of authorities on women’s literature. Published three years ago, it continues to resonate with readers.
Devon Price’s journey to authorship via Medium resonates as well. When Price’s 2018 piece, “Laziness Does Not Exist” went viral, it led to a book deal. You can find Price’s story on Medium’s official blog, where we talked to him about his ideas. We’ll be highlighting other authors whose work has intersected with Medium over the coming months.
One more: Ahead of the third anniversary of the COVID-19 epidemic, we asked Medium writers to share their pandemic stories. Nearly 600 of you responded, writing on topics ranging from the personal to the medical to the political. You can read a list of some of our favorites, or see the full range of #Pandemic Stories here (and if you’d like to share yours, just add that tag to it when you hit publish, and we’ll keep an eye out).
Lastly, a note for the writers among you: We’ve just upgraded the experience of publishing to Medium on our mobile apps. To see the changes, make sure you’ve updated to the most recent version of the Medium app, and read more here.
As always, thank you for being here.
Scott Lamb
VP, Content @ Medium
Here’s what we’re reading this week:
“Discovering Creativity: On Your Unique Blob and the Threat of Normalcy” by Anna Iurchenko, designer at Google Health, in UX Collective
A reflection of my journey in finding my creative self and an attempt to understand why and how creative identity can be hidden.
“College Basketball’s NFT Rankings, Explained” by Giovanni Malloy, data and decision scientist, in Towards Data Science
Whether you are a burgeoning fan or a 50-year veteran spectator, data science is playing a larger role than ever before in how you experience the game. The teams comprising the tournament are chosen in large part by a data-driven algorithm called NET rankings.
“The Biggest Issue with Long-Term Productivity” by Scott H. Young, author of the bestselling book ‘Ultralearning’
The top researchers, programmers and entrepreneurs have more professional impact — by orders of magnitude — than their typical peers, but it’s usually not just because they’re just trying really hard.
“What Every Parent Needs To Know About Teen Substance Use” by Danielle Dick, Ph.D., Director of the Rutgers Addiction Research Center, Professor of Psychiatry, Author of “The Child Code”
I direct the largest addiction research center in the country, and I study substance use in adolescence. Here’s what every parent needs to know about adolescent substance use.
“A Simple Strategy for Boosting Happiness and Health: Spend Time in Nature” by Catherine A. Sanderson, Poler Family Professor of Psychology at Amherst College
What’s so good about spending time in nature? Here’s what the empirical research reveals.
“5 Tips for Women to Negotiate a Higher Salary” by Alexandra Mislin, Associate Professor in the Department of Management at American University, for The Conversation U.S.
Consider what you really want before you launch into your negotiation — hit pause and take a step back. How does what you’re asking for fit into your bigger work or life aspirations? You might start with a focus on a salary increase, but what you really want is an accelerated promotion track.
“Angela Bassett Is Allowed to be Disappointed” by Whitney Alese
A reminder that Black women are allowed to feel emotions, whether you are comfortable with it or not
What have you been reading lately? Let us know in the responses.
