Well, I was blown away by the outstanding writing that was submitted to this season’s contest. I received about 10x the number of submissions I received for the Spring 2021 contest. Which made for a lot of reading, re-reading, and difficult decisions. Please enjoy all of the wonderful creative nonfiction…

The Spring contest was so successful I’m doing it again — even bigger and better. — Calling all writers! Announcing Tell Your Story’s Fall 2021 creative nonfiction contest! Tell Your Story is already home to some of the best creative nonfiction on Medium, and I want to keep the momentum going. So our 2nd ever contest is even bigger and better than the first. Prize money…

To be honest, I didn’t know how this would go. Frankly, I wanted to draw some attention to this new idea I had for a publication. A publication for writing that’s quite different from what you typically see here. …

I’m hosting a writing contest. Details here. — Calling all writers! Announcing Tell Your Story’s Spring 2021 creative nonfiction / personal essay writing contest! I want Tell Your Story to become the home for the best creative nonfiction on Medium. Check out what we’ve published already, and I think you’ll agree that we’re on our way. To help…

Titles are for clickbait. First sentences are where the real magic happens. — The first sentence of a great personal essay can set the tone, establish voice, and do several other fancy literary things that folks with MFA degrees from liberal arts colleges with tree-lined sidewalks and complicated recycling bins can tell you all about. Don’t get me wrong, those other fancy literary…

Another contest in the books! And another very difficult job for yours truly — identifying the finalists and winners from hundreds of submissions. I’m proud to be including ALL of these pieces in Tell Your Story, and very proud to be featuring all of them in the upcoming print edition. …

It’s that time once again… give me something to read!! — It was almost 70 degrees the other day where I live. In February. This is not normal. Normally, if it’s 70 degrees in APRIL people are asking why the public pools aren’t open yet, neighbors are joking about the two days per year of tolerable weather we get as they…

I’m proud to announce the winners and finalists for Tell Your Story’s Fall 2022 writing contest! This just keeps getting better and better, and I was again blown away by the quality of the submissions. I had to make some very difficult decisions. …

Calling all writers! Announcing Tell Your Story’s Fall 2022 creative nonfiction contest! Tell Your Story is already home to some of the best creative nonfiction on Medium, and I want to keep the momentum going. Our first three contests — started in 2021 — were incredibly successful, including print editions…