Why This New $50,000 Medium Writers Challenge Is Problematic
Even though it features Natalie Portman
Yesterday evening (in Germany) I read a post by Medium. 3 minutes about a new Medium writers challenge in August that gives participants the chance to win $50,000.
Wow.
Shortly afterward, I enjoyed reading Kristina God’s thoughts about it in her post “You Can Win $50,000 On Medium”.
Great news was my first reaction to all of this. And it is.
But I thought about it some more and found a few problematic aspects about this new challenge.
What is it?
This challenge — which is judged by Natalie Portman and other inspiring writers like Roxane Gay, Saeed Jones, Susan Orlean — boasts a whopping grand prize of $50,000 for the overall winner and $10,000 each for the winners of the 4 writing prompts: Reentry, Death, Work, and Space.
That’s $90,000.
Additionally, the best 100 entries that don’t win get $100 each for their work. To find out more about the prompts and the challenge, read the official Medium post here, as this is not the main topic of my story.
