Submission Guidelines
Appreciating well-written, well-edited articles
Hi!! Thank you for being here!
First — a bit about why this pub with this theme. What’s with “Hope, Healing and Humour?”
Well, it starts with growing up in an abusive, frightening environment that laid the groundwork for a tumultuous adult life, too.
A Story of Suffering…A Quest for Happiness
Throughout the decades of turbulence and crises, I was on a quest for happiness. I ached for healing. And I didn’t have much hope.
In fact, there were times I had no hope at all. I’d been struggling with a debilitating, painful physical illness for a long time. I couldn’t take the suffering anymore.
I made plans to let go of this life. I figured my family would be better off not having to watch me suffer. They could stop wondering which day they’d come home and find me dead.
Anyway, making a long, ugly story short, eventually I dug myself out of that hole. My spiritual journey helped, along with my sense of humour, which managed to keep poking its head up even when things were pretty dark. Even when I was a frightened kid in a scary home, I used humour to help me cope.
My whole life has been a journey of hope and healing, punctuated by doses of humour that hid my pain, lightened my load, and gave me a bit of perspective in some of the darkest of times.
I know how it feels to suffer. And I know it feels when that suffering stops. It is an honour and a privilege to be able to participate in making that happen.
I love being able to share what I’ve learned, or perhaps a few kind words or a little encouragement or validation. If there’s something I can say or do to make that journey a little easier for someone else, I’m all in. And that includes helping you share your stories, insights, wisdom and life experiences to support others in their journeys of angst and overcoming and getting through another day.
Even if it means something as simple (and powerful) as putting a smile on a face or making someone crack up and laugh like a crazy person for a minute or two. Sometimes that’s all we need to lift our spirits, renew a sense of hope, and make us think maybe things are gonna be okay after all. ’Cause you can live a long time on just a little bit of hope, you know.
If you’ve got stories like these, they can find a home here.
Okay, here’s where I have to get all businessy and put on my businessy hat. It’s SO not my forte but here we go.
Who Can Submit?
I accept well-written, well-edited submissions.
I don’t generally make any changes to submissions that I publish, apart from an occasional fix of a typo or something like that. If your article needs more than a light tidy, I will likely offer a gentle note about what might be helpful. You can always run the Hoover over it, tickle it with a feather duster, get a soft cloth and polish it — whatever it needs to put it in its best light — and try again.
You will also need a current paid membership on Medium (regular or “Friend of Medium”) when submitting to HHH.
Supporting Our Community
And this is extra important: Please consider sharing the work of at least one other writer in each of your submissions. At Hope, Healing and Humour, we’re about supporting and helping each other.
BTW: Those writers can be anyone on Medium, not just HHH writers (although it’s extra nice when we support our Pub Family!).
Also — please clap for other articles on this pub. Highlights are helpful to the writers, too, please. And leave comments; those are the best for feeding Mr Algorithm. We all know what a hungry beast he is.
Let’s engage with each other, have conversations. This is not a post-and-run kinda joint! And that’s a great policy for Medium in general, not just here at Hope, Healing and Humour.
Please let me know if you want to be tagged in a weekly “newsletterish” so you don’t miss any news or “invitations” (otherwise known elsewhere on Medium as “prompts”) or info on the next “Pub Family Zoom Chat” or other goodies that might be relevant, interesting, or just plain FUN for you. Plus … we’re a “Pub Family.” We’re building a community that nurtures and supports each other and reads the work of our fellow writers. It’s not cool to post and run. Right? Glad you agree.
What Kind of Content?
It has to fit one or more of the themes of hope, healing, and humour. Hmm. Bet you weren’t expecting that. This allows a fairly broad range. However…
Only positive, uplifting, supportive content, please. Stories with heart. Stories of overcoming. If you need to dive into the past to talk about a challenge you were having, that’s great just as long as the point of the story is that you’ve turned it around.
Or that you’re at least working on it, that you believe you’ll get there, that you can see the light at the end of the tunnel and it’s not the train coming at you — anything that leaves readers feeling encouraged and believing things’ll get better for them, too.
In fact, those kinds of stories are welcome and helpful and a main part of why I’ve created this pub. If people arrive here and they’re struggling, I want them to feel inspired by the time they wander off to some other part of the internet — hopefully, whistling a happy tune and feeling better for having been here.
AI-Generated??
AI-generated pieces will not be accepted. They have a certain feel about them and if I suspect that your device wrote them for you — or that you just changed it enough to hope I won’t notice — I’ll run them through a few AI detectors.
This is a writing platform. This publication is about humans sharing their life experiences, learning, insights and hearts with other humans. It’s about people lifting other people and helping them on their journeys. Save your AI playtime for other venues.
Drafts or Published?
Draft submissions only, please.
This is so I can make any necessary changes before publishing, such as when people forget to share the work of at least one other writer, or when they’ve made other little errors that need correcting.
Also, submissions appear in the order they were published, so if you published something in the past (even if it’s only several hours), it shows up way down the list on HHH’s timeline and if there are others after you, yours will be missed by many people.
It benefits you to submit only a draft, and allows me to fix what needs fixin’ (not that I do much of that) so please do not submit published work.
Previously published work will not be accepted.
Photos
For the best presentation of your article, here’s what makes Medium all warm and fuzzy and maybe even feel like it’s had too much champagne:
- Be sure you credit your photos
- Put a description in Alt Text. When you click on the photo, you will see this pop up. Click on it and describe the photo briefly for people who are visually impaired.
Links
You’re welcome to put one or two links at the bottom, e.g. an opt-in link, your website, or perhaps a couple of links to your other work. Just be sure that somewhere in your submission, you’ve also shared at least one piece by another writer.
ALWAYS use box links for sharing writers’ stories. Put copy/paste the URL and hit “enter” so it looks like this:
Length
I prefer anything up to about 7–8 minutes, but if it’s a compelling story that needs to take 10 or 12 minutes for you to share it properly, go for it. I’m the queen of those, so I get it!
Questions Not Answered Above?
Ask me in the comments.
Interested in Joining?
If you’d like to be considered for submissions:
- Follow me
- Follow this pub
- Let me know in the comments
- Tell me your Medium ID
- I’ll stroll on over to your neck of the woods and take a peek at your work and see we’re a good fit.
- If you would like to be tagged in the weekly “newsletterish” please let me know in the comments, and I’ll add you to the list. You can also ask to be taken off the list at any time. The newsletterish is a fun little read with some food for thought, a prompt, plus news, such as when the next “Pub Family Zoom Chat” will be etc. And always some of your dopey editor’s goofy humour.
More Pub Fun!
Oh, and before I scram…in case it’s relevant for you, I have two other pubs:
First Line Fiction — Every Tuesday, I’ll give you the first sentence of a story that you finish:
The Afterlife — Stories that offer evidence-based and experience-based information that proves or supports the belief that “this” is not all there is…
Now, go and have a splendiferous day!
