Medium Reveals Writers Challenge Winners; “Death” Most Popular Prompt
Medium announced the winners of this year’s Medium Writers Challenge. Judged by Medium editors, writers, and others including Natalie Portman, Roxane Gay, Imani Perry, Susan Orlean, and more, the competition leaned heavily into Medium’s ethos of “good ideas can come from anywhere.” The creator platform has awarded a total of $100,000 dollars split across a grand prize winner ($50k), subsequent prompt winners ($10k each), and the top 100 essays based on views and read time ($100 each).
The winning pieces of work wildly exceeded expectations among the group of judges and Medium execs alike, and would absolutely be worth your time to read over. The winners span a varying range of backgrounds representing the interesting prompts from which they were given to develop winning works of writing.
“It was a pleasure to read work that exceeded my expectations. The range of subjects and the variety of tones was exciting. It was a really strong group of contenders.” – Susan Orlean
Medium’s Writers Challenge grand prize winner, “death” prompt winner, and recipient of the $60k cash prize is Los Angeles, CA resident, Randi Ragan. Randi is being recognized for her personal essay “Keeper of the Place,” under the chosen writing prompt of “death.” The grand prize-winning piece is about a woman’s grandmother, who just killed herself after living a life with undiagnosed bipolar disorder. It’s a brilliantly surreal juxtaposition of the mundane legal process of retrieving a deceased loved one’s belongings set to the emotional disarray and grief as to why an elderly woman would kill herself and the mystery behind it.
Read “Keeper of the Place” Here
Some back story on Randi and her journey to the grand prize… Interestingly, Randi’s grand prize-winning piece has followed her closely throughout her L.A. journey.
- She moved to L.A. having already written most of this piece thinking it would be a screenplay.
- In her quintessential Los Angeles success story, Randi got herself a screenwriting agent, and booked meeting after meeting but it ended up going nowhere.
- She largely gave up on the piece and eventually shelved it.
- Randi then found success in self wellness and mindful living, a very lucrative field in Los Angeles.
- Years went by and she found herself still searching for a way to mentally deal with the trauma of her loss and that’s when she noticed the call for submissions to Medium’s Writers Challenge – and the rest is history.
“Over the years I’ve served on various juries judging various kinds of writing. I don’t think I’ve ever been involved in a judging process where all the judges read all the work, or where the best work was so unequivocally the best. Well done, Medium.” – Kurt Andersen
Runner-Up Winners
Prompt: “Re-entry”
Winner: Sarah Hawthorne
Winning Piece: “The Hope That Holds You Back”
Prompt: “Work”
Winner: Hal H. Harris
Location: Little Rock, AK
Winning Piece: “Black Personhood Does Not Have Equitable Access to the Work of Homeownership”
Prompt: “Space”
Winner: Meera Vijayann
Location: London, UK
Winning Piece: “The Space Between My Fingers”
