Guide to Writing for AMPLIFY
A Global Health Corps Publication
AMPLIFY is our bespoke digital publication at Global Health Corps. It’s the online home of fresh perspectives on leadership, social justice, and health equity. AMPLIFY lives right here on Medium, and it’s a space for our community — fellows, alumni, staff, interns, partners, and friends — to share their reflections, insights, and ideas with the wider world.
Quickly: What’s Medium?
Medium is a highly engaging and user-friendly platform — basically a social media network specifically for blog posts. Medium promotes the exchange of ideas and stories, through better publishing tools and mechanisms for responding, reacting, and building on one another’s ideas. AMPLIFY is one of many Medium publications owned by various organizations and groups.
Cool! How do I get published on AMPLIFY?
Our goal is to deliver compelling, fresh content from a diversity of voices. We do this by prioritizing inclusivity and collaboration as we solicit and edit submissions. We strive to be thoughtful and efficient throughout our editorial process, and we pay special attention to preserving the authenticity of our contributors’ voices.
Step 1: Browse AMPLIFY to get a feel for the types of content we publish.
We’re not looking for overly personal (think MySpace live journal) or super academic (think The Lancet) pieces. We are looking for fresh takes, creative formats (including video, poetry, or multimedia), and unique approaches. We’re also looking primarily for original pieces not published elsewhere, but will consider cross-publishing some pieces. If it’s about social justice, health equity, and/or leadership, broadly defined, we’re interested!
Step 2: Mind these tips.
- Check your lens. Before you submit a draft to AMPLIFY, ask someone with a different cultural background than yours to review it and share feedback. If you’re a GHC fellow, ask your supervisor and/or the communications lead in your office to review your post and sign off on it.
- Pay attention to detail. You must have a photo in your Medium profile, at least one high resolution photo with a caption and credit in your submission, and a 2–3 sentence bio at the end.
- Keep it short, but not too short. Drafts should be roughly between 300–1000 words. Have a lot to say? Pitch us a series of posts!
Step 3: Pitch us your idea by emailing bailey@ghcorps.org or submitting your post directly to AMPLIFY.
We’ll be in touch within a few days to let you know if your idea/submission is a fit, add you as an contributor to AMPLIFY if you’re not already, and share any of our initial questions or feedback with you.
New to Medium? Here’s how to submit to AMPLIFY in two quick steps…
- Log in to your personal Medium account, then click “Write a story” in the top right corner to open a blank draft page. Note that you can type here directly or paste your draft in from another application. Do NOT publish the draft.
- Once your draft is ready, click the […] button at the top right of your draft, then “Add to Publication,” and select AMPLIFY from the drop-down. Your draft will then be sent to our team for review.
Visual learner? Check out this video tutorial on how to submit to AMPLIFY.
Step 4: Be an active partner in our collaborative editing process.
- We’ll review your draft in the backend of AMPLIFY and make some light line and copy edits. We’ll share any feedback or questions with you via Medium’s comment feature, then we’ll email you to let you know when our review is done (usually within 10 days of your initial draft submission).
Step 5: Share your published piece with the world.
Once your post is published, we’ll send you a link which we encourage you to share widely! We’ll also share on GHC’s social media pages, including Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. If you shared your social media handles with us, we’ll tag you in our posts. If AMPLIFY followers and others on Medium react or respond to your post at any time after it’s published, you’ll be notified by email. To keep the dialogue going, feel free to reply to responses to your post.
That’s it! We’ll leave you with this inspiring reminder of the power of words from the activist and writer Audre Lorde:
“I have come to believe over and over again that what is most important to me must be spoken, made verbal and shared, even at the risk of having it bruised or misunderstood… it is not difference which immobilizes us, but silence. And there are so many silences to be broken.”
Questions? Email brittany@ghcorps.org. Technical difficulties? Check out Medium’s support section or reach out to their wonderful support staff.
Note: Global Health Corps reserves the right not to publish pieces at our discretion, including those that may be inappropriate or incendiary.
