Congratulations and thank you for soliciting feedback from writers. I've been writing on Medium for about three years - primarily personal essays and a few deeply researched editorials about topics I'm passionate about. I write about parental grief. My daughter died from cancer when she was 15. This is a topic that is very personal and very painful and very important to write about. I hear from bereaved parents all the time. They tell me my writing helps them feel less alone. They're my people. This is why I love writing on Medium.

I'd love to write more, but I make very little money here. I don't publish often - maybe twice a month - and even that feels like a lot because (and I'll be very honest here) I make anywhere from $250 - $500 per piece for my personal essays elsewhere. I'm also a professional content writer in the martech space and I make good money writing for clients. There's only so many hours in the day, so I often must choose to write for the paying clients versus writing for pennies on Medium.

What I'd love from Medium - and this is pie in the sky - is to see some kind of hybrid payment approach for professional-quality writing. You've done this before. I was part of the beta program that paid writers a fixed amount per month as long as we published X pieces per month. That felt like the first time in my life I got to write whatever I want and get real money for it (versus working for paid clients or cold-pitching publications after the essay was written). Before the algorithm shift at the end of 2019, I was earning that much per month just from readers. That also felt wonderful. To write what I want and to get paid enough to make it worth it - well, that's the dream. Medium may not be the place to make that happen though, so right now I'm using the site to slowly build an audience, republish my work, and post occasional blog-style essays.