Hi editors,

Happy November! Here’s what’s going on this month:

• How Political Prism editor John Polonis got 55k views on one Threads post for a writer
• The revamped topic pages are a(nother) big reason to help your writers choose topics well
• Dark mode is here (finally!), including in the story editor
• TK, our new writing app, is now open to everyone
• A great monthly Editor Partner Program status email
• Thank you for your November prompts — now it’s time to share your December prompts using this new form link
• Upcoming events: Writing Hour, Medium 101, and The Writers Circle
• Plus, recordings from Medium Day are now available on our YouTube channel

FYI: I’m out on maternity leave until May 2027! Katie Petterle will be writing these newsletters in the meantime.

Use Threads to promote your writers’ work

Editors can help writers get found off Medium, and John Polonis editor of The Political Prism, has a great example. He wrote a note, Use Threads to market your writing, about a five-post thread he wrote promoting a story by one of his writers, Neela. The thread resulted in 55k views on a post less than 12 hours old, and about 150 people clicking through to read her essay, from an account with only about 1.3k followers. Here’s the post on Threads.

John is honest that it’s not a huge click-through ratio, but it’s better than the zero readers Threads would have sent otherwise. “If you package something well with a hook, compelling story, strong visuals, and a good call to action, people will find you!” is his advice.

(And remember, if any of those 150 readers were Medium members, or if they became members to read Neela’s story, she’ll earn more for those reads than if they came from Medium!)

If you promote your writers somewhere, on Threads or anywhere else, reply and tell me how it’s going! I’d love to share more examples.

Dark mode is fully here!

Late-night editing sessions just got easier on your eyes. Dark mode, one of our most-requested changes for years, now works all across Medium, including the story editor.

Turn it on at Settings > Appearance. Here’s the announcement.

We got a lot of expected questions like, “Why did it take so long?” and “Why are you making a big deal out of something most other apps had a decade ago?” If you want the behind-the-scenes story, the engineer behind the whole thing, Christine L., wrote up how it all happened: Dark mode was never on our roadmap. Here’s how it got built.

Thoughtfully choosing topics for your writers

We recently improved topic pages, which is where stories show up if they’ve been tagged with that topic. Now, those pages use AI to catalogue, group, and surface relevant stories to readers who come to a topic page to browse.

As a publication editor, you have the power to change a story’s topics! Before you publish a story, take 10 seconds to check that its topics describe what it’s about.

Topics have always mattered to help readers discover stories — Medium’s algorithm uses reader interests to help match story to reader. But we envision a world where even more readers use our topic pages to dive deeper into their interests. Today, topic pages get around half a million monthly views. We want that number to go up as we make it easier for readers to explore the truly incredible wealth of knowledge writers have shared over the years on Medium.

Looking for guidance? I run through our best practices like gauging a topic’s popularity and whether it’s a good fit for the story right here.

How editors are using TK

Since November 9, anyone can use TK for free, our new writing app for sharing your writing with a small, trusted circle. Join here!

Many Medium editors have been using libraries, which are shared spaces where you can collect and share notes with a group, for their publication’s writers and drafts.

Give it a try and let us know what you think!

A short and good update on the Editor Partner Program

In October 2026, more publications (and editors) qualified for the program, and we paid out more money than in any previous month.

Why does this matter? Our bet with the Editor Partner Program is that we incentivize and reward editors for helping us bring readers the best stories for their interests. Our Writer Partner Program is designed to incentivize quality stories, and the Editor Partner Program earnings sit on top of that.

TL;DR: When we pay more money to more editors, it means we have more amazing stories on Medium–and that more readers, on and off Medium, are finding those great stories.

Call for December writing prompts

Thank you to every editor and publication who sent prompts for November! Here’s the full list of November 2026 writing prompts.

Don’t see yours? Is your publication putting out writing prompts for December? Fill out this form and we’ll include it in current and future writing prompt lists.

Upcoming events

Join us (virtually) for…

• Writing Hour — Cameras off, relaxing music, just write.
• Medium 101 webinar — Send your newer writers! We cover formatting, topics, images, and all the basics.
• The Writers Circle — Prompts, community chatting time, and breakout rooms.
• AND: Relive the magic of Medium Day 2026! Session recordings are now available on our YouTube channel.

That’s it for November. As always, reply with questions, feedback, or anything you’d like to see in a future newsletter. See you in May 2027! You’re in great hands until then.

Happy editing,
Zulie @ Medium

Editor Newsletter: Using TK as a Medium editor was originally published in The Medium Handbook on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Hi writers,

Happy November! Here’s your list of updates:

• TK, our new writing app, is now free for everyone. Read on for what it is and where to start.
• Dark mode is fully here! Turn it on at Settings > Appearance, and read how a decade-old request got built.
• Thinking about starting on Medium? Advice from 31 writers who started in 2026.
• Need ideas for what to write this month? Check out our November 2026 writing prompts.
• Upcoming events: Writing Hour, Medium 101, and The Writers Circle. Plus, recordings from Medium Day 2026 are now available on our YouTube channel.

FYI: I’m out on maternity leave until May 2027! Katie Petterle will be writing these newsletters in the meantime.

TK is open to everyone

Since Nov. 9, anyone can use TK, our new writing app. Join here!

TK is a place for all your messy notes and drafts. You can think of Medium as your gallery: where you publish your finished, polished works. TK is the studio where you just try a bunch of stuff, stick all your half-baked drafts and ideas, and have fun. You can read more about it in this story by our CEO, Tony Stubblebine.

I put together a TK FAQ that covers how AI and privacy work in TK. (TL;DR, the AI is there to help you write, not to generate text; it never trains on any of your writing. All your writing is private by default with options to share if you want.)

Have a question that isn’t in there, or feedback after trying it? Raise a ticket here. We read every one.

Dark mode is fully here!

Dark mode, one of our most-requested changes for years, now works all across Medium, including the story editor. To turn it on, go to Settings > Appearance. Here’s the announcement and a quick video.

Many writers were mostly curious about things like, “Why the long wait?” and “Why are you making a big deal out of something most other apps had a decade ago?” So I asked the engineer responsible for finally making it happen, Christine Leverett, to share more behind-the-scenes intel. Here’s her writeup: Dark mode was never on our roadmap. Here’s how it got built.

P.S. I’ve been dropping breadcrumbs in these newsletters for the past few months about this upcoming announcement and I’m so curious if anyone noticed them!

Thinking about starting on Medium?

If you’re getting this newsletter, you’re already a writer. But maybe you haven’t published in a while, or you’re curious about the advice writers who started this year would give.

I asked 31 writers who started on Medium in 2026 what they’d tell their past selves, and their advice is worth a read, whether you’re new or just need a reminder. Read Thinking about starting on Medium? Advice from 31 writers who started in 2026, and send it to the friend who keeps saying they’ll start writing someday.

November 2026 writing prompts

Need an idea for what to write about? Editors across Medium put together prompts for the month. Here’s the full list of November prompts.

Thank you to the editors and publications who sent prompts this month! Find or take part in a prompt I missed? Use this form to submit prompts and we’ll feature them in our next newsletter!

Upcoming events

Join us virtually for…

• Writing Hour — Cameras off, relaxing music, just write.
• Medium 101 webinars — Formatting, topics, images, and all the basics.
• The Writers Circle — Prompts, community chatting time, and breakout rooms.
• TK 101 webinars — A demo of TK, with live Q&A at the end.
• PLUS: Watch Medium Day 2026 sessions you missed, now available on our YouTube channel.

As always, post a response below with questions, feedback, or anything you’d like to see in future issues. See you in May 2027! You’re in great hands until then.

Happy writing,

– Zulie @ Medium

Writer Newsletter: TK is open to everyone was originally published in The Medium Handbook on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Here’s a common situation: You read a great Medium story about how to do something useful, something you’ve been interested in learning for a while, like how to find and attract freelance clients. You read it, you apply it, you move on with your life.

What you don’t know is that it’s just one story in a rich web of stories Medium writers have shared over the years about that useful skill. How could you? Medium writers share thousands of stories every day, and have done so since 2012. You might stumble across another one by coincidence in your For You feed, or someone you follow might clap for it, so it shows up in your recommendations. But there’s no rabbit hole for you to easily dive into.

That’s the problem we wanted to solve with our improved topic pages. We wanted to give readers more context, more depth, and more richness on any of the topics Medium writers have covered, all in service of a better reading experience.

Explore a topic page for yourself and see how many great stories you can discover.

AI to surface, human taste to reign

We’ve used AI to do two things with the new topic pages: cluster stories into subtopics, and add a note of context about what each story is about, to help the reader choose what they’d like to read.

AI is not good at many things. Famously, for example, it is bad at generating unique, valuable stories. We all know it. But artificial intelligence can be used for good.

In this case, it would be nearly impossible (or at best: extremely time consuming, expensive, and probably boring) for any one person to trawl through the 32 thousand stories published about pets to help organize and categorize them. But trawling and categorization are some of the things AI is good at.

AI is not great at deciding which story is the best, or most compelling to you. You rely on my own taste, and that of people you trust. So we wanted to start by using AI to wade through the stories, categorize them, and add extra context. Then you, the reader, dive into the rabbit hole of knowledge, wisdom, and priceless human experience we’re lucky enough to be the home for.

Questions we expect you might have:

• Will AI train on stories on the topic pages? No, absolutely not.
• Will the AI summaries make readers less likely to click on the stories? That’s the opposite of our goal! We’ve designed these summaries to help readers choose more stories to read. We know any product change can have unexpected effects, so we will be keeping a close eye on how this affects reading across Medium. Ultimately, we want more reads, not fewer.

We’ve addressed more possible FAQs in our help center article here. If you have any questions, check it out! For feedback about this (or anything else), please submit a request here.

How to use the new topic pages

Wander on down to any topic you’re interested in. You can start by browsing the explore topics page until you find a topic you’re interested in, or you can click on any of the topic badges on any great story you read.

You’ll see, at the top, stories selected by Medium (us showcasing our taste), and popular stories from this week, which are stories broadly enjoyed by that topic’s community of readers. Then you can keep scrolling down to see AI-categorized facets of that topic. For example, on the writing topic page, you’ll see categories like craft & technique, digital platforms, and fiction & storytelling, each with subcategories beneath them.

Under each story, you’ll also find a brief summary explaining what that story can provide for you.

What’s next?

There’s been great writing on Medium since 2012–literally millions of stories on almost any topic imaginable, waiting to be discovered. And there are thousands more great stories coming in every day. We’re living in a writing revival, and we’re going to keep iterating on how we can help connect the best story to the right reader.

New: Use the new topic pages to explore your fascinations on Medium was originally published in The Medium Blog on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Over ten years ago, Medium user Naveen wrote a story about wanting a dark mode to better read stories on Medium, especially at night. (In classic Medium writer style, he designed a prototype himself and wrote about his process!)

It was a great idea back in 2015, and since then, many other writers have taken to Medium to share their frustrations, experiences, and possible solutions for dark mode, not to mention the hundreds of readers who have sent in support tickets requesting it.

Just one short decade later (!), we are happy to finally release dark mode on Medium. We hope it helps you enjoy more of the stories you read.

Special thanks to the Medium users who submitted feedback to us: Pham Ba Tho, Michael Hagan, Alexeyprog (Алексей Крайст), Sarmakalem (Çağla Demir), Artyomkey (lolwho), Julitop 55 (Julio Banda), Timtom7of9 (Popollux), Notbrain (Brian Ross), Mukhammed Sailaubek (Mukhammed), Tmg40 (D.L. White), Limeauthority (Liam McDonnell), lizporter2019 (Liz Porter), Wink (Wink Saville), Harishk3493 (Harish K).

How does it work?

If you already have dark mode turned on in your computer’s system settings, you should just be able to come to Medium.com and have it be in dark mode automatically — we’ll respect whatever your system’s settings are!

If you want to manually set Medium to dark mode, just head over to your Settings > Profile > Appearance > Toggle to Dark.

Any questions, issues, or feedback? Here’s where to let us know.

Behind the scenes

How did a decade-old request finally make it to users? We had a pretty full roadmap already, with reposting, the Editor Partner Program, AI opt-out, off-topic badges, table of contents, publication calendars, and more.

We’ve had lots of passionate engineers and designers over the years that have wanted to tackle dark mode. This year, Christine Leverett found the space and the leverage with Claude Code to start building dark mode on her own in February 2026 between other projects.

We knew it was going to be a hit (it has consistently been one of our top three most-requested changes). Once there was momentum, the rest of the team picked it up and got it across the line in September.

If you want the longer story, Christine wrote up the whole process here, including how she used Claude Code to manage scoping/ticketing, the guardrails that kept it from scope creep, and what’s next on our dark mode roadmap.

Dark mode for Medium is finally here was originally published in The Medium Blog on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Hi editors,

Happy October! Here’s what’s going on this month:

• Meet our five Editor Award winners, chosen from 300+ of your nominations
• How are you using the (new!) content calendar? Plus, the behind-the-scenes story of this year’s editor tools (and why publications now get 10 topics instead of five)
• An update to the Editor Partner Program — we’ve more than doubled payments to editors since we launched
• Share your November writing prompts, and check out our October 2026 writing prompts
• Upcoming events: Spooky Storytime, The Writers Circle, Medium 101, Writing Hour, and TK 101

Recognizing five brilliant Medium editors

Editing is kind of a mystical art. Writing goes in, editing happens, and better writing comes out. But there are so many ways for that process to occur, which means there are so many ways to recognize it.

At Medium Day, we were thrilled to celebrate five editors for the editorial work readers always appreciate, but rarely notice. We received 300+ nominations, which made choosing hard in the best way. Alas, decisions must be made!

Here are this round’s winners:

• Community Builder Award: Rodrigo S-C, editor of Full Frame.
• Equity in Action Award: Patsy Fergusson, editor of Fourth Wave.
• Champion of Emerging Voices Award: Susan Brearley, editor of MuddyUm.
• Story Whisperer Award: Ali Hall, editor of Life Without Children.
• Editor’s Editor Award: Debra Groves Harman, editor of The Narrative Arc.

Congratulations to all five! You can read every nomination quote in my Medium Day recap.

This was our second round of Editor Awards this year. The first winners were announced at Pub Crawl in March. Now it’s officially a twice-a-year tradition, so look out for another chance to recognize an editor you admire.

Share your feedback: How are you using the content calendar?

Last month, we launched the content calendar for publications. If you haven’t tried it yet, open your publication’s scheduled stories and switch from List view to Calendar view. Every scheduled story shows up on its go-live date and time, and you can drag and drop stories to a new day if plans change.

Now I want to hear from you:

• Has the calendar changed how you plan your publication’s schedule?
• What’s missing?
• Anything confusing?

The content calendar is a direct result of editors asking for what they want, so don’t stop now! Please keep sharing what could make your life editing on Medium easier, better, and more joyful.

Reply to this email and let me know, or raise a ticket here.

What changed for publications and editors?

Want to see how the sausage was made? Scott Batson, the engineer behind many of this year’s editor tools, wrote a candid behind-the-scenes story: What we built for Medium editors this year (and what I broke). A few of my favorite details:

• Balancing easier submissions with a good editorial experience. We wanted more publications to open their submissions, but we knew “open” can mean a flood of low-quality stories. As someone put it in one meeting: “Open submissions doesn’t feel fair … unless we give them something that makes their lives better.” That’s where bulk decline, off-topic badges, submission requirements, and decline reasons came from.
• Publications can now use 10 topics instead of 5. Off-topic badges on stories in your publication draw from the five topics you set as your publication’s topics. Editors asked why the limit was five, so Scott dug in and found… nobody knows! He bumped up the topic limit to ten to help editors use the off-topic badges more effectively.
• Whoops–we broke something. When Scott shipped decline reasons, there was a solid hour nobody could submit to a publication on all of Medium. Oops! Luckily we started hearing from users pretty quickly, and it was a quick fix.

An update to the Editor Partner Program

When we launched the Editor Partner Program, our goal was “make it clear your work is appreciated and you have a share in the success of the platform.”

Four months in, we more than doubled how much we’re paying out to editors. This is due to both more publications and editors qualifying, as well as qualifying stories earning more.

Honestly, we’re thrilled to send more money your way, for two reasons. First, the mission one: Editors matter to us at Medium. We appreciate the work you do, from finding great writers, sharpening their stories, and building publications readers come back to.

And secondly, it’s just good business sense. Every dollar we spend on editors helps us make Medium a better place to read and write, which is what makes our company grow. The more your stories thrive, the more you earn. We want payouts to keep climbing.

If your publication isn’t in the program yet, check your eligibility under Manage publication > Editor Partner Program. We auto-enroll new, qualifying publications at the start of every month.

Thank you for everything you do for writers and readers on Medium.

Spooky Storytime: Join, listen, and encourage your writers to join!

We’re hosting our first ever Spooky Storytime! Join us on Thursday, October 29, 12 p.m. Eastern. Six Medium writers read their spookiest stories live. Here’s how your writers can enter.

As an editor, feel free to take part as a spectator, encouraging your writers to enter, or as a contestant yourself.

Just attend The Writers Circle on October 15, respond to the spooky prompt, and publish your story on Medium with the topic “Spooky Storytime.” Stories need to be under five minutes long and meet our Distribution Guidelines.

We’ll let selected writers know on October 23, and six of them will read their stories aloud at our first-ever Spooky Storytime on October 29. Everyone is welcome to come listen. Here’s everything you need to know about entering.

Call for your November prompts

Thinking further ahead than October: Is your publication putting out writing prompts for November? Tag me in the story (@zulie_at_medium) or reply to this email when you publish your prompt, and I’ll include it in next month’s Writer Newsletter.

Thank you to all the editors who sent prompts for October! Here’s the full list of October 2026 writing prompts. Don’t see yours? Reply and I’ll add it.

Upcoming events

Join us (virtually) for…

• Spooky Storytime — Thursday, October 29, 12 pm ET. Six Medium writers read their spookiest stories live. Here’s how your writers can enter.
• TK 101 webinar — Tuesday, October 13, 1 pm ET. A demo of our social writing app TK, with live Q&A at the end.
• Medium 101 webinar — October 14 (12 pm ET), October 23 (9 am ET), and October 28 (12 pm ET). Send your newer writers! We cover formatting, topics, images, and all the basics.
• The Writers Circle — Thursday, October 15, 12 pm ET. Prompts, community chatting time, and the last chance for your writers to enter Spooky Storytime.
• Writing Hour — Every Thursday, 10 am ET. Cameras off, relaxing music, just write.

Missed a Medium Day session? Recordings are available for registrants to rewatch until October 31. Just follow the same instructions from Medium Day to log into the event and find them in the “Sessions” tab to catch up. (We’ll have more information about recordings in our next newsletter — stay tuned!)

That’s it for October. As always, reply with questions, feedback, or anything you’d like to see in a future newsletter.

Happy editing,

— Zulie @ Medium

P.S. As a reward for reading to the bottom of this very long newsletter, here is some breaking news: We (finally!) released dark mode for Medium! Did you spot any of my easter egg hints in the previous newsletter?

We’ll be making more of an upcoming splash about it in the coming weeks, but if you’re this far down on the newsletter, you deserve a sneak peek. If you want dark mode but don’t see it yet, head on over to Settings > Appearance > Dark mode to turn it on.

Editor Newsletter: The five editors who won our Medium Day Editor Awards was originally published in The Medium Handbook on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Happy October! The days are getting shorter and the nights are getting longer, which feels fitting this month 🌑

Here’s your list of Medium updates:

• Have you played our (new!) word game?
• Check out the (new!) topic pages to encourage readers to dive deeper into your stories.
• See all your scheduled stories in one (new!) calendar view. Originally only for publication editors, now for all writers.
• FAQs about (new!) custom footers for your stories.
• What’s the State of Writing in 2026? Stats on loving writing, using AI, and reasons to write.
• Last chance to enter Spooky Storytime: Join The Writers Circle on October 15.
• Need ideas for what to write this month? Check out our October 2026 writing prompts.
• Missed Medium Day? Read the recap. If you registered but couldn’t make it, you can catch up on sessions by logging into Zoom on Mediumday.com. For those who didn’t register, we’ll have sessions uploaded by the end of October on our YouTube channel.
• Upcoming events: Spooky Storytime, The Writers Circle, Medium 101, Writing Hour, and TK 101.

A good word(s) experiment on Medium

If you’re a game lover, check out Medium’s first game, Good Words!

Good Words is a three-minute, live word game you play in rounds alongside other readers on Medium. Search the board for as many words as you can, see if you can spot the bonus word with a clue, and learn the definitions of words you missed at the end of a round. If you’d like to try it out, head to Medium Games (only available on web for now).

Since it’s only available on the web, make sure you open that link on your browser, not the app, if you want to try it. Here’s a link you can copy-paste into your browser if you’re running into issues: medium.com/games/good-words.

A better way to dive into topics

Over half a million readers browse topic pages every month, like Medium.com/tag/writing (only available on web for now). We’ve known for a while at Medium that those pages could be better — easier to explore, easier to find great stories, easier to turn into a catalogue of human wisdom.

We recently revamped our topic pages with those goals in mind. Each topic page groups stories into themes, with short AI-generated summaries that give readers more context on each theme and story.

For writers like you, that means older stories get a real second chance at finding readers. It’s also a good reason to choose your topics carefully: pick the ones that describe what your story is about, since that’s how it ends up in the right place. (Your story shows up on a topic page whenever you add that topic to it (you can add up to five).

Want to see an example? Check out a topic page — like the writing topic page — again, only available on web for now! Copy-paste medium.com/tag/writing into your browser if you want to make sure it works.

I know the inclusion of AI can raise a lot of questions for writers, so if you want more details about the new topic pages and how we’re thinking about AI, please check out our help desk article. Feedback? We’re all ears. Raise a ticket here, we read every single one.

What’s the State of Writing in 2026?

In short, 2026 is bringing a writing revival, and we have the data to prove it.

A lot of people say reading and writing are dying. We didn’t believe it, so we asked writers. We partnered with The Harris Poll to survey 1,175 writers from across the internet about how they write, how often, and why. The result is our first annual State of Writing report.

If you want to prove the reading-and-writing haters right and get the TL;DR version instead of reading the whole report yourself, here are the stats I found personally most interesting:

• The biggest takeaway is that writers still enjoy writing–over 75% like or love it.
• Obviously, AI is part of the picture, but there’s nuance. Over 70% of writers used AI in their writing in the last three months, mostly for editing, brainstorming topics, and getting feedback.
• Yet 60% don’t trust writing they produced with AI, and 69% don’t trust AI-assisted writing from others.
• Out of the writers we surveyed, only about a quarter share their writing publicly every month.
• Plus, money isn’t the main motivation for most writers. Only 12% write to earn.
• The biggest motications for writing were self expression (56%) and self-care (41%).
• The most common goal for the next year is to finish a major personal project (38%), not to grow an audience.

You should read the whole report! It’s good. But if you don’t get the chance, I hope this snapshot gives you the same feeling it gave me: Writing is alive and well, writers enjoy writing, AI is changing things across the board, but the overall landscape is a hopeful, positive one for reading and writing.

Read the full report here.

Your scheduled stories, now on a calendar

Last month, editors got a content calendar for their publications. Now every writer has one too. Head to your Scheduled tab and you’ll see every story you’ve scheduled in a calendar view.

If you’ve never scheduled a story in advance, give it a try! When you have a publish-ready draft, press “Publish” and then choose “Schedule a time to publish” to pick a date and time.

Custom footers

You can now add a reusable footer at the end of every story you publish. It’s a handy place to point readers to your newsletter, your book, or your other work, as well as your social media profiles. Try it out by going to Settings > Publishing > Manage Story footer.

At the moment, this feature is free to use for any writer. Try it out, see what you think, and let us know if you have any thoughts, either by raising a ticket or sharing in our blog post responses. While we plan to charge for it in the near future, we’ll give you a heads up before we get to that point so you can decide if you like it and want to keep it.

In the meantime, we’ve gotten tons of great feedback from users already — thank you! — and over 12,000 writers have tried it out. We also got some great questions in our blog post announcing the feature — I updated the FAQ section to include the answers to those, covering if you’ll get surprise billed (no), more customization options (not yet, but thanks for the feedback), and what you’re allowed to link and promote (basically anything, just don’t break the Rules) among other questions.

Spooky Storytime: Last chance to enter

We’re hosting our first ever Spooky Storytime! Join us on Thursday, October 29, 12 pm ET. We’ll choose six Medium writers to read their spookiest stories live. Here’s how you can enter.

Attend The Writers Circle on October 15, respond to the spooky prompt, and publish your story on Medium with the topic “Spooky Storytime.” Stories need to be under five minutes long and meet our Distribution Guidelines.

We’ll let selected writers know on October 23, and six of you will read your stories aloud at our first-ever Spooky Storytime on October 29. Everyone is welcome to come listen. Here’s everything you need to know about entering.

October 2026 writing prompts

Need an idea for what to write about? Editors across Medium have put together prompts for the month, plenty of them suitably spooky. Here’s the full list of October prompts.

Thank you to the editors and publications who sent prompts this month. Find or take part in a prompt I missed? Reply to this email and let me know.

Thank you for Medium Day

Thank you to everyone who joined us on September 18. We ran 111 sessions and had attendees from 120 countries, and the chat was chatty all day long.

If you missed it, I wrote up what stood out at Medium Day 2026. Session recordings are starting to go up on our YouTube channel! Keep your eyes peeled. If you registered but couldn’t make it, you can catch the recordings by logging into Mediumday.com. If you didn’t register, keep your eyes on our YouTube channel — we’ll have sessions uploaded by the end of October.

Upcoming events

Join us virtually for…

• Spooky Storytime — Thursday, October 29, 12 pm ET. Six Medium writers read their spookiest stories live.
• TK 101 webinar — Tuesday, October 13, 1 pm ET. A demo of our social writing app TK, with live Q&A at the end.
• Medium 101 webinar — October 14 (12 pm ET), October 23 (9 am ET), and October 28 (12 pm ET). Formatting, topics, images, and all the basics.
• The Writers Circle — Thursday, October 15, 12 pm ET. Prompts, community chatting time, and your last chance to enter Spooky Storytime.
• Writing Hour — Every Thursday, 10 am ET. Cameras off, relaxing music, just write.

As always, reply to this email with questions, feedback, or anything you’d like to see in future issues.

Happy writing to you, at any time of day or night.

Zulie @ Medium

Writer newsletter: A new calendar view for your scheduled stories was originally published in The Medium Handbook on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

We’ve added more FAQs to the FAQ section to the bottom of this story. Thanks for all your questions and feedback so far, keep it coming!

Medium writers, you can now try out a new custom footer option that lives at the bottom of your stories. Set it up once, and it appears on all your stories. It’s a great way to:

• Point to your latest blog post
• Direct readers to your blog, book, or newsletter
• Promote your other social platforms
• And more — we can’t wait to see the creative ways you use it!

We know there are writers on Medium who just want to share stories without worrying too much about anything else, but we also know there are writers who want to take advantage of Medium’s built-in audience and simple publishing tools to build their business more seriously. Writers have been adding footers, cramming links in their bios (at least 50k+ of you use Medium to direct readers to your newsletter!), and promoting courses, books, newsletters, websites, and more on Medium for a long time.

We plan to charge for the custom footer feature, but want to make it available for all writers to get a chance to hear your feedback. As we look for new ways to support all kinds of writers, we’re exploring tools like this one that would be part of a future set of paid features for writers. Try it out and let us know what you think.

How exactly does Medium’s custom footer work?

Using the custom footer, you can:

• Choose between “contrast” or “subtle” themes to make your footer card stand out or blend in.
• Customize your bio text, beyond what your standard bio has.
• Add up to four buttons directing readers wherever you want.
• Update your social links. We currently support Bluesky, LinkedIn, Substack, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Threads, and X.

Anytime you update it in your settings, it will automatically be updated on all your stories. The custom footer is visible to any and all readers.

You can turn on and update your custom footer by going to Settings > Publishing > Manage Story Footer, or use this link. Please note: You can only set it up on Medium web right now, not on the app.

Supporting pro writers more

We love that Medium is the simplest, easiest place to get started writing and reach readers. But it’s also true that writing is one of the most compelling professional pitches you can give, and that writers use Medium in more serious, professional ways, too.

We see and hear every day how writers use Medium as a portfolio to support their career goals, businesses, side gigs, and more. Many Medium employees were hired off the strength of our writing! We want to build more tools to help support writers who want to go beyond casual posting and use Medium as a real avenue for professional growth.

As always, let us know if you have any questions in the responses. We can’t wait to hear what you think.

FAQ

What is the custom footer?

A customizable block that appears at the bottom of every story you publish. Set it up once, and it applies to every story you’ve published on Medium. When you update it in your settings, it will automatically update on every story.

How do I turn it on?

Go to Settings > Publishing > Manage Story Footer, or use this link. Setup is web-only for now.

What can I put in it?

We expect writers to add custom bio text, promote their course, newsletter, product, meetup, book, consultations, and more. You can also add up to eight social links: Bluesky, LinkedIn, Substack, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Threads, and X.

Who sees it?

Any reader who lands on your story.

Is it free?

Yes, for now, but we will charge for it in the future. As we experiment with features that will be part of a future set of paid features for writers, we wanted to make this one available to all writers to get your feedback and hear what you think. When we begin to charge for it, we’ll let you know beforehand.

Why is Medium building this?

Writers have used Medium to support real careers and businesses for a long time. The custom footer is the first tool built for that kind of writer, with more coming.

Will you charge me if I still have the custom footer when it becomes a paid tool?

No surprise bills! We will not charge you unless you specifically click the button to upgrade to get the custom footer.

Before anything changes, we’ll email every writer who uses a custom footer. You’ll have time to decide whether to keep it. If you decide not to, it’ll just disappear from your stories. You can always upgrade at any point to get it back.

Can I turn my footer off?

Yes. Go to Settings > Publishing > Manage Story Footer and switch to the default footer. Your custom settings are saved, so you can switch back anytime.

Can I link to my newsletter, blog, or products outside Medium?
Yes, please do! That’s what it’s for. The only restrictions are that your footer still has to follow the Medium Rules.

Can I add links to my book, ebook, or course?

Yes. You can add up to four buttons, and each one can link anywhere.

Will having a footer affect how my stories are distributed?

Nope! Distribution still depends on how your story meets the distribution guidelines.

Can I use different footers on different stories?

Not yet. One footer applies to all your stories. That’s the big benefit — set it up once, and it applies to all your stories. If you have a new product or platform to promote, you can change it in one place, rather than having to manually update all your stories.

However, if this is something you want, you’re not alone! Several of you asked for this, and we’re listening. Please feel free to raise a ticket here with that feedback if it’s something you’re interested in.

Does my footer show on stories I publish in a publication?

Your footer shows on all your stories, including ones you publish in publications.

Can I see how many readers click my footer?

Footer stats aren’t available to writers right now. (Again, we know this is something writers are interested in and asking for!)

Can I change the colors, fonts, or layout?

For now, you can pick one of two themes: contrast or subtle. More colors, fonts, and a more compact layout are among the most common requests, and we’re tracking them.

In case you’re interested in our behind-the-scenes discussion: We’re always balancing the needs of writers with those of readers. Writers love customization and the chance to promote. Readers on the other hand often tell us how much they love the smooth, distraction-free reading experience Medium gives them. That’s why we opted for subtler footer design options to start.

I don’t use some of the social platforms. Can I hide them or add others?
Only the social links you fill in and switch to visible will appear. For a platform we don’t support yet, like Gumroad, feel free to add it as a button.

Where do I send feedback?
Leave a response on this story, or send us a note of feedback through the support desk here.

Try out custom footers on your Medium stories was originally published in The Medium Blog on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Hi writers,

Happy September! Here is your list of Medium updates. Remember — if you’re reading this on the web, you can use the Table of Contents on the right to easily navigate this newsletter to whatever sections interest you most!

Medium Day 2026 is September 18 — save your spot!

On Friday, September 18, join us for Medium Day: over 12 hours of free virtual sessions on writing, storytelling, and community, running 8 am to 8 pm ET. Register here.

This year, Friends of Medium get exclusive access to attend a special talk on the State of Writing 2026, presented by VP of Content Scott Lamb. We worked with Harris Polling to survey writers across the internet, and separately polled our own Medium writers, so expect data-backed answers on what motivates people to write, how they feel about where writing is headed, and what they’re actually trying to get out of it.

Partner Program enrollment is instant now

We’ve streamlined the Partner Program enrollment flow. Instead of applying and waiting to hear back, you go through the flow and get a yes or no immediately, along with what’s missing if you don’t yet qualify. No more waiting in the dark.

If you’ve been putting off applying because you weren’t sure how, or if you’ve applied before but either didn’t hear back or weren’t sure why you didn’t get accepted, now’s the time to take another look. Here’s the link to enroll.

New on Medium: Making Topics more discoverable

Topic badges now show up at the top of stories, not just the bottom, so readers can tell what a piece is about at a glance; we’ve already seen reads pick up across Medium since making that change. Read more about that change here.

This isn’t the only change we’re making to topics: Look out for a newly designed topic page coming out shortly.

When writers on Medium think of discovery, they often think about their story getting “picked up” by our recommendation system and shown to readers Medium’s system thinks will be most interested in that story, either on the home feed or in the personalized Digest emails we send out.

Not many think of topic pages. This is a big blind spot! Your story is added to a topic page when you add a topic to that story. You can add up to five. Over half a million readers scan the topic pages (e.g. Medium.com/tag/writing) every month, looking for the latest stories to read. We hear from readers, especially those who read on Medium for professional reasons, that this is the best way to read cutting edge developments in their field.

We want to add an extra dimension to that utility — not just the most recent stories, but the best, regardless of how old they are.

In general, social media has a recency bias. It’s easy to find what people are engaging with right now but it’s harder to dig through the archives to find something great from 2019 or whenever. But just because your story was published months or years ago doesn’t mean it’s not worth discovering and reading today.

We’re launching the early redesign soon, but we’re planning to make more changes to the topic pages to make them into more of a catalogue, archive, and deep dive resource in addition to a place to see the latest writing on any topic.

September 2026 writing prompts

Need an idea for what to write about? Editors on Medium have been burning the midnight oil to bring you prompts. Here’s the full list of September prompts.

Thanks to everyone who sent one in this month. Find or participate in a prompt I missed? Reply to this email to let me know — I’d love to include as many prompts, across as many topics, as possible!

Spooky Storytime: October 29, 2026

On October 1 and October 15, we’ll put out some spooky Halloween-themed prompts for anyone who attends The Writers Circle. On October 29th, six lucky entrants will have the opportunity to read their story aloud at our first-ever Spooky Storytime event on October 29th.

How to enter:

1. Sign up and attend either the Oct 1st or October 15th session of The Writers Circle
2. Respond to one of the Spooky Storytime prompts
3. Publish your spooky story with the topic tag “Spooky Storytime”

We’ll look through all qualifying stories (less than 5 minutes long and meet our Distribution Guidelines) and notify selected writers on October 23. The reading happens on Zoom during Spooky Storytime and is open to all.

Look out for more details coming soon! For now, register for The Writers Circle and start getting into the spooky mood.

Upcoming events

• Medium Day — Friday, September 18, 8 am — 8 pm ET. From early light until it gets dark! Register here.
• The Writers Circle — Oct 1, 12 pm ET. Prompts, writing time, and a chance to connect with other writers and editors.
• Writing Hour — Every Thursday, 10 am ET. Cameras off, relaxing music, just write.
• Medium 101 Webinar — Wednesdays and Fridays. Send your newer writers! We cover formatting, tags, images, and all the basics.
• TK 101 webinar — Monthly demo of what our social writing app TK is all about, with time for a live Q&A at the end. Next one is October 13th at 1 pm ET.

As always, reply to this email with questions, feedback, or anything you’d like to see in future issues.

Happy writing, no matter what time of day or night you open your draft.

– Zulie @ Medium

Writer Newsletter: What’s the value in an older but still great story? was originally published in The Medium Handbook on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Hi editors,

Happy September! Here’s your monthly Medium update.

(As a reminder, you can easily navigate this story on the web using the Table of Contents feature on the right of your screen.)

Editor Partner Program: what’s changing, and why

As of September 1, we’re updating two of the criteria that determine Editor Partner Program eligibility. Read more in our blog post here.

We removed the “healthy distribution” requirement across your last six months. We’re also lowering the published-story cap from 300 to 100 stories a month, but only going forward, starting September 1. If you published over 100 stories in the past six months, that won’t affect your eligibility.

A few questions we’ve been hearing:

Q: Why remove the healthy distribution requirement?

Several of you told us it was confusing and frustrating to not get healthy distribution on stories, but without knowing what you could do to improve that. Our goal with the Editor Partner Program requirements is to reward the publications that help Medium thrive and grow, and to help publications that don’t yet qualify to get there. The Healthy Distribution qualification didn’t give editors useful information, and was pretty confusing to many of you, so we decided to scrap it.

Q: Why reduce the story cap?

This change came as a result of more data and reader feedback. Readers have told us that some higher-volume publications feel less curated, and we saw that reflected in our internal data.

Q: Will a publication’s newsletter count toward the story limit?

No, newsletters won’t count to the 100-story limit, only stories.

Read more in our blog post here.

Medium Day is September 18

Friday, September 18 is Medium Day, with Writing, Community, Platform, and Perspectives tracks. Come with an empty notebook and leave with something tangible to help you improve your life in some way, big or small.

New this year is our State of Writing 2026 report, presented by Scott Lamb. The talk is only available to Friends of Medium, but the report will be released publicly later that same day. It’s a good session to point your writers toward, especially anyone building an audience on Medium right now — consider sharing the registration link with your writers if you haven’t already. Expect data-backed answers to questions like:

• What motivates writers to write
• How writers feel about the outlook of writing
• What writers are aiming to accomplish through their writing
• And more: tools, audiences, money, reading, and beyond

We worked with Harris Polling to target writers from all over the country and internet, and separately polled our own Medium writers. It’s been very interesting to see how Medium writers differ from writers who primarily write elsewhere online!

New tools for managing your publication

A few editor improvements that reached your publication this month:

Check out your content calendar view. (Blog post here.) You can now choose to use a visual calendar that you set up and see your upcoming story schedule. When you schedule stories, they’ll show up on your calendar with the time they’re going live. You can also drag and drop those stories to another day.

Editors can now see and manage editors and writers more easily. You now have a new page to more easily see, add, and review all the editors and writers in your publication. Now, on the “Editors & writers” tab on your publication drop-down menu, you can not only add writers and co-editors, but also see their profile picture and bio in a searchable list. Plus, you can export them all via CSV.

We heard from editors with a lot of contributing writers and editors that the old way of doing it was a little unwieldy to manage — hard to see who was already there, no information beyond a handle like @zulie_at_medium, and if you wanted to remove a writer, you’d have to visually spot them first. Now, we hope it’s a bit simpler to manage your publication’s contributors.

Publications with just one editor now get that editor auto-assigned to new submissions instead of needing to manually claim them every time.

Submission inbox filters now persist, so if you find you always filter to approved writers or new writers, that’ll be your default view.

More of these improvements are in the pipeline.

New on Medium

In places other than your publication, we’re continuing to make Medium a better place for all your reading and writing needs. Here’s the list of this month’s improvements:

• Topic badges now show up at the top of stories, not just the bottom, so readers can tell what a piece is about at a glance. This resulted in an increase in reads across all of Medium!
• Medium Partner Program enrollment is now streamlined and gives you an instant yes or no. Basically, instead of needing to apply and wait, you can now go through the enrollment flow and get your answer immediately. This update is more for writers than editors, but I know editors often field questions about the Partner Program from writers, so I wanted to let you know.
• A sneak preview: look out for a newly designed topic page coming out this week!
• An even sneakier preview: rest your weary eyes on a long-awaited new feature, announced next month! 🌖

Call for your October prompts

If your publication is putting out writing prompts for October, tag me in the story (Zulie @ Medium), or reply to the Editor Newsletter email you received and I’ll include them in next month’s Writer Newsletter.

Thank you to all the editors who let me know about their September prompts! And if you don’t see your pub’s prompts in my September roundup, please reply to this email to let me know.

Need ideas? We’re planning on running a Spooky Storytime prompt for October through The Writers Circle, so feel free to get inspired by the spookiest month of the year! More details to come.

Upcoming events

• Medium Day — Friday, September 18, 8 am–8 pm ET. Register here.
• The Writers Circle — Oct 1, 12 pm ET. Prompts, writing time, and a chance to connect with other writers and editors.
• Writing Hour — Every Thursday, 10 am ET. Cameras off, relaxing music, just write.
• Medium 101 Webinar — Wednesdays and Fridays. Send your newer writers! We cover formatting, tags, images, and all the basics.
• TK 101 webinar — Monthly demo of what our social writing app TK is all about, with time for a live Q&A at the end. Next one is October 13th at 1 pm ET.

That’s it for September. As always, reply with questions, feedback, or anything you’d like to see in a future newsletter.

Happy editing,

– Zulie @ Medium

Editor Newsletter: Have you checked out your publication’s new content calendar? was originally published in The Medium Handbook on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

When we launched our Editor Partner Program in July 2026, we knew there was a good chance there would be changes pretty early on, as we learned from the publications taking part in the program and heard from readers, writers, and editors about their experience.

That’s why in September, we are making two changes to the criteria for the Editor Partner Program:

• Removing the Healthy Distribution requirement
• Reducing the monthly story limit from 300 to 100

Starting in September, we’ll be onboarding publications that were previously disqualified in past months only for missing Healthy Distribution requirements. The 100-story limit will only apply going forward, starting in September 2026.

For example, if you published 101 stories in August, that won’t disqualify you for the month of August. If you did not meet the Healthy Distribution requirement in August 2026, that will not prevent you from qualifying for that month, either.

Why these changes?

Our goal with the Editor Partner Program is to encourage and reward the editors who bring value to Medium and the communities they build. When we launched the program in July, we wanted to hear from editors what worked, what didn’t, what could be improved. We also wanted to hear from readers about what publications they value and want to read more of, and find ways to reward those editors.

Editors told us the Healthy Distribution requirement was confusing and didn’t give them information that they could use to improve their publication. Again, we want the Editor Partner Program to reward and incentivize you, not be a source of frustration. So we decided to scrap this requirement.

We heard from readers — and corroborated with our own internal data — that publishing more than three stories a day from a publication was just overwhelming; readers stop reading that publication’s stories, or worse–unfollow it, mute it, and sometimes cancel their Medium membership.

What’s next?

We want to make the Editor Partner Program the best fit for as many publications as possible. Publications help make Medium work, bringing value to readers, writers, and the editors who build and work on publications. We’ve been investing in improving how publications work overall, for all editors, and we want to ensure that the Editor Partner Program serves the editors who are our partners in making Medium grow and succeed.

Thank you, again, for all you do to edit your publication. And thank you for the feedback you’ve already provided to help improve publications and our Editor Partner Program on Medium.

If you have any questions or feedback about the Editor Partner Program, please raise a ticket through our support desk here — we read and triage every ticket we get to make sure the right teams take the feedback into account! It’s part of how we came to these changes. And, as always, feel free to leave a response to this story.

We’re updating the Editor Partner Program qualifications in September 2026 was originally published in The Medium Blog on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.