Medium Day is in 38 hours (or less by the time you read this)
Here are a few of the sessions I’m planning on attending — and one I’m hosting (!)
This weekend, Medium turns 11 (yes, we’re officially tweens now). To celebrate, we’re hosting a live event you’ve probably received around 1,000 emails about by now (okay, maybe 4 emails): Medium Day. Most of the time, we’re all quietly typing on our laptops in relative silence… but on Saturday, many of us will see each other face-to-face and talk to each other with our mouths. Weird! Fun! I think it’ll be fun.
I just scrolled through the list of 250 sessions, and many of them made me smile. I mean, how can you not want to attend “Roz Warren, Writing Coach, Tells You Why Your Title Sucks, Why Your Introduction Is Too Damn Long, and Why You Need to Shape and Structure Your Work”? I want to go to that.
Plus: I’m hosting a panel of authors who’ve turned their Medium stories into books: Julio Vincent Gambuto (author of Please Unsubscribe, Thanks!), Kaki Okumura (author of Wa: The Art of Balance), and Benjamin Sledge (author of Where Cowards Go to Die) will share advice and wisdom for anyone on Medium looking to become book authors themselves. It should be a lively discussion.
Here’s my rough schedule-in-progress, with lots of concurrent sessions I’ll probably hop between as the day goes on…
Medium Day, August 12
- Welcome to Medium Day! feat. Medium staff (9am-9:25am ET)
- How Medium Curators Evaluate Stories for Boost feat. Terrie Schweitzer, Director of Curation @ Medium (9:30am-9:50am ET)
- Writing About Movies for Fun and Profit, a panel with Fanfare writers and editors Eric Pierce, Simon Dillon, Sheila Moeschen, and Sarah Paris (9:30am-10am ET)
- How to Find Your Voice as a Writer and Artist by Liza Donnelly, writer and visual journalist for The New Yorker (10am-10:30am ET). This one will feature live drawing — we tested it this morning and it should be delightful.
- Is AI Really the Future?, a panel with Brandeis Marshall, Kenya Oduor, Ph.D., and Dr. C - Data & AI · Diversity · Wellness; moderated by Adrienne Gibbs (10am-10:45am ET)
- She’s Not Strategic: The Bias-Based Issue Holding Women Back From Leadership with Jess Iandiorio (10:30–11am ET). I still remember this popular post by Iandiorio on the topic of sexism and strategy (it was going around internally at Medium a while back — highly recommended).
- What We Get Wrong About Minimalism with Stephan Joppich, engineer, writer, and bibliosopher (10:30–11am ET)
- How to Start a Successful Publication on Medium with Debra G. Harman, MEd. (editor of The Narrative Arc), Robert Roy Britt (editor of Wise & Well), and Thomas Smith (editor of The Generator), moderated by Ariel Meadow Stallings, Medium’s Director of Publisher Relations (11–11:45am ET)
- Up Your Corporate Ladder: How to Accelerate Your Career with Daniel Rizea, Director of Engineering @ Google (11:30am-12pm ET). I’ve learned a lot from Rizea’s Medium posts, including this one about lessons learned from interviewing 1,000 job candidates.
- Medium Keynote Address and Q&A with CEO Tony Stubblebine (12–1:15pm ET)
- How Tarot Cards Can Help You Tap Into Your Creativity with Miriam Rachel (2:30–3pm ET)
- How to Get Started Developing Applications With Large Language Models with Paolo Rechia, software developer and data engineer (2:30–3pm ET)
- The Future of Augmented Reality with David Pogue, longtime New York Times tech columnist and six-time Emmy winner (3–3:30pm ET)
- Writing the Littlest Pep Talks with Sophie Lucido Johnson, author and illustrator (3–3:30pm ET). If you haven’t read Sophie’s “How to Do 50 Things,” one of the most delightfully useful stories I’ve read on Medium in my life… read it.
- Interstellar: The Search for Extraterrestrial Life with Avi Loeb, the Harvard astronomer who is currently analyzing debris from an interstellar meteor, and Vox’s Bryan Walsh (3–3:45pm ET)
- The Science of Happiness with Catherine Sanderson, Author & Psychology Professor at Amherst College (3:30–4pm ET)
- Making a Comic in 30 Mins: A Live Demo with Pablo Stanley, doodler and author of the legendary “Buttsss: A Case Study” (4–4:30pm ET)
- How the Media Gets Trans Coverage Wrong with Julia Serano, Devon Price, and Jude Ellison S. Doyle; moderated by Katherine Cross (4–4:45pm ET)
- The Art of the Personal Essay: 4 Tools for Working Deeper with Savala Nolan, essayist, author of Don’t Let It Get You Down, and U.C. Berkeley law professor (4:30–5pm ET)
- Making Money on Medium: Facts, Myths, and Misconceptions with my brilliant co-worker Buster Benson (5–5:20pm ET)
- You Should Write a Children’s Book with Ryan Rucker, author of Is This Your Favorite Ice Cream? (7:30–8pm ET)
- Bi Myself: Coming Out Late in Life with Rand Bishop, songwriter and novelist (8:30–9pm ET)
Build your own schedule at MediumDay.com. See you on the internet.
