Dear Mehmet,
Thank you for your kind words regarding my Bio (Gandhi, Brian Cox, and Fred Ogden …) following my publication of it, when I also tagged ‘Illumination’.
I’ve been wanting to write to you for some time now — since publishing my first story on Medium in late November 2020, but being ‘new to the game’, I didn’t quite know ‘how to’. However, now that I have received (via Medium email) your comments re my Bio, I am able to reply to you by using the ‘response’ button.
I have now set up a new dedicated email address for all my writing correspondences (updating my Medium data info accordingly — including Illumination). It’s Fred.Almost.Famous@gmail.com, and I’m using it to compose this reply to you (but posting it via the ‘response’ button on Medium’s email).
As I don’t subscribe to social media — email being my only (and preferred) method — it is my hope that I will be able to keep in touch (and be kept in touch) using this method only — for all my Medium-Writer intercommunications. In this respect, how do I ‘find’ Medium Writers’ email addresses? I need help here.
I will understand if you advise me re other methods of corresponding with you and other writers, but being the private person that I am, I am unlikely to become more socially-linked. By-the-way, in this context, I did get your invitation to join ‘Slack’ for correspondence purposes, but didn’t feel able to sign-up. I hope you understand.
Never-the-less, in this email I would like to share with you some brief comments arising from my first experiences & observations re writing for Medium:
· I have been super-impressed by your various and varied Medium posts, stories, and ideas-stimulants — which I read ‘avidly’.
· You are very supportive (and helpful) of new (and established) writers. Much appreciated.
· Your analysis of Medium’s ‘new’ text-editor was excellent — very thorough, and yes, I agree with you: ‘it could be much more ambitious’!
· Your encouragements to me — as a new writer — and your invitation to me to write for Illumination after only my first publication in late November 2020 (Providence by Devine or Provenance by Design) still gives me a thrill — though I still don’t know quite what ‘being a writer for Illumination’ means — or how to do it! Help/guidance needed. I would be delighted to become an Illumination Writer. The next dot-point illustrates this dilemma.
· At the start of this year, an Illumination article invited people to write a bio and send it in to Illumination. I wrote my bio; didn’t know how to get it to ‘Illumination’, so contacted Tree Langdon, who was most helpful. I then published it on Medium, but somehow it didn’t seem to get an Illumination response, so I tweaked it last week making sure that during edit, I linked it to Illumination as a publication, and low & behold, you got it — and sent me the lovely message of encouragement. So perhaps I’ve mastered it. Is it that simple, and if so, how do I add other publications if I choose to?
· I also like your ideas re ‘Short-form Stories’ and ‘Story Book Collection’, and your clear desire to help writers to increase their exposure. I am hoping that I’ll be able to increase my exposure in order to create a healthy following.
Thanks again Mehmet for your kind words re my bio. Sorry to be a bit of a nuisance. But ‘hey: we are all learners, aren’t we?’. Though I am a seasoned and experienced writer of hundreds of lectures, sermons, and stories over the years, I didn’t publish anything until just three months ago. But thanks to your encouragements (personal, and via Medium posts in general), I am certainly ‘On my Way’ now.
Thank you, Mehmet.
Fred
FRED OGDEN
