Pen With Paper — ‘MAYDAY’ ‘MAYDAY’ Newsletter✍️
Just Kidding. It’s Only the May Newsletter.😄
Pen With Paper — ‘MAYDAY’ ‘MAYDAY’ Newsletter✍️
Just Kidding. It’s Only the May Newsletter.😄
Image Designed by Author — Sriram Yaladandi
Hello, Pen With Paper Family 👋
May was anything but quiet.
After a slower April, we opened the doors to new prompts, new conversations, and new opportunities to tell stories that mattered.
And you answered.
Not with noise. Not with trends.
But with honesty.
From deeply personal reflections to creative journeys through identity, memory, and self-discovery, May reminded us that great writing doesn’t need to shout to leave an impact.
And through it all, our community kept growing.
A Community That Keeps Growing
Every month, ***Pen With Paper*** becomes a little bigger.
But what matters more is that it becomes a little deeper.
This month, we welcomed 500+ new writers into the publication.
Together, we are now nearing 20K+ readers, followers, and writers strong, connected by a shared belief that stories can still move people.
Thank you for being part of this journey.
A New Way to Join Pen With Paper
May also marked an important change for our publication.
We officially introduced:
Pen With Paper Submission Guidelines 2026: A Brand New Way to Be Added as a Writer
Our previous writer request stories have now been retired.
In their place, we’ve launched a clearer and more structured process for aspiring contributors.
The new system includes:
Updated submission guidelines A smoother approval process Clear publishing expectations Better writing standards A streamlined path to becoming a writer
This change helps us maintain quality while making the onboarding process easier and more transparent for everyone.
If you’re planning to join the publication, be sure to check out the updated guidelines.
✍️Writing Challenges That Defined May
This month we ran three writing challenges, and the response was incredible.
Each prompt asked writers to look inward.
Each answer revealed something deeply human.
1 — 🏅Meet Our Writers
A Writing Challenge by Meta Marvelia
This challenge wasn’t about writing a story.
It was about meeting the storyteller.
For perhaps the first time, our writers stepped beyond their articles and introduced themselves to the community.
Fifty writers.
Fifty identities.
Fifty reasons why writing matters.
After reading every submission, one voice lingered just a little longer.
🥇Winner
Congratulations, Lalindra! 🎉
Your submission captured exactly what this challenge was meant to uncover: the person behind the words.
Read full wrap up by Meta
The first writer who arrived was… a cat. No kidding. “Slices of life, is that you?” She came with a strangely and purringly soft energy. The gracefully (feline style) writer simply said that she was the “I-don’t-care” kind of writer. Not going to debate you on this, sis.
Then, more writers started to walk into the room. I hoped we had enough chairs for everyone. They came as themselves. The honest, real human writer who decided to step beyond their writings.
I said my greeting to Ruler Of Twilight. Her badge read “Longing to encourage”. A teenage writer who could sound a bit feminine, yet she didn’t want to write romance.
“Ayuwoban Lalindra,” I greeted him. The writer who deletes obsessively. The overthinker who avoided writing about himself and just took a leap of faith a couple of months ago. “Now you can go down from the slide, bro!”
Sir C.V. Rajan. The restless retiree. “Sir, I hope you don’t stop writing. Surely the world wants to learn about the fashion hack you made to your white shirt so it could hold your smartphone in smartly way.”
The ~usmyy strode in like he owned the place. The hasty poet who didn’t want to write about geopolitics anymore. Yet, I remembered a writing by someone named Just Be Free about the Earth’s family members and their quirkiness. Quite a humor on it.
Joshita tagged herself as Quietly Chaotic, who gave us the ultimate permission slip to see the real her in her writings.
~Quietbee♡ — A dreamer. She felt free and was the realest person when she was writing. The light, carefree, full of emotions, but also deep.
Karishma Tripathy brought the words Phantom Writer. The loud, mad, ecstatic who roar in a silence. Her writing wasn’t anywhere near the end. “Go on. Write! Living your dream. Word by word.”
Gaganbir Kaur Makan’s badge read Still Unsure. And I knew that she wasn’t alone in this. And her voice would be true to her core and maintained to show complete honesty in her writings.
Balwinder Singh said he was ‘in search’. A traveller who added characters and voices as each chapter unfolded.
Eipsitakumari, with ‘Almost Unsaid’ tag, cleared her throat, making herself known. She wrote when something sat wrong. She would call herself an uncertain writer who questions too much, feels too much, but the half-clear, half-holding-back version was the closest truth on her page.
Next, I greeted Sonia.The soul writer who wrote so she could understand better, so she didn’t keep everything inside.
Our writers honestly took my breath away at this point.
Another writer walked through the door. Biswarupa Mohapatra — Passively Active writer who tried to open up her heart by being simple at its core.
Our retired captain, Vinod Bhardwaj walked into the room with Gratitude for the Solitude. He who was hardened by the discipline of a soldier became a humble, grateful, and warm-hearted writer.
Seema Sharma: Becoming me. She lived in the moment. She evolved and moved on when she wrote. Her writing was the kind of writing that sat quietly beside you — and made you think.
Mr ShubhamAgrawal was an observer. He wrote with a certain calmness. Not to impress, but to stay. Not loud, not polished, but true.
Swati — Quiet Storm. She was a stranger who read and judged her own mind. Her mind was always full. And by writing, she might finally find her voice.
Welcome back Monika Mahadev. The Imperfectly Perfect. She didn’t write. Her writing wrote her. The real her. The one that could shock her past self. The hero of her own story.
The room suddenly felt lighter when she came and brought a Can Do spirit. Louise Hurd. I adored how she felt most confident in her writer’s mind. The happy woman! Nice to have you here.
Nicole Henley — Soul Alchemist: A Phoenix Rising. Writing and music were where she became the most feral and most honest version of herself. Writing was the ceremony she gave to herself. “And you shall live twice, just like what Anaïs Nin said.”
TwinQuills — the thought collector, entered. Who wrote because their mind refused to stay quiet. A person who hadn’t mastered life, and was still trying to understand it — through writing.
Crystal Crowder’s tag read “Endless Dreamer”. Everything she wrote had a little piece of her and her dreams. Did this writer know that she shook me inside when she said this challenge not only discovered a new side of herself, but started the healing on wounds she wasn’t sure how to soothe?
Kalindi Singh. The Romantic Realist. She said she was the voice of people who are not good at expressing their feelings and emotions. She sounded practical. It showed that she was mature, trust-strong yet not naive.
Archita Shukla brought the Constant Whimsy vibes. She smiled to herself when she wrote. The sweet ice cream in the making, who carried kindness in her writing.
Ruchi🌼: “I am a voice — not just for myself, but for all those who were never heard.” She poured all those unheard thoughts of hers when she was writing.
Kak Dilla Kirana’s badge read Soft Cynic. She was the most honest version of herself when she was writing, as it allowed her to sit with her thoughts without having to perform them. Someone who tried to make peace with her life, one paragraph at a time.
Manmeet Singh Bhatia: the Tenderly Composed writer. He entered the room with a tender soul who returned to his home. Writing was his home, and he was the one who stayed when the room went quiet.
Neha@RisingSoul 🐦🔥was a Rising Soul. She left her old self behind and embraced a new version of herself — one that rose from her own ashes. (a direct quote from her post). Her writing voice belonged to her soul, which had been through fire and storm. Who rose beautifully to start another beginning.
Whose wings were those? Oh, nadia syeda came with her Vibrant Wings. A writer who went after light even in the darkness. A soft butterfly. Vibrant. Delicate. Beautiful.
Veronica Holsinger — veronicaholsing@gmail.com: Elegantly Wasted. She was shadowing as Andrea Sachs. And she wrote her words through the chaos that somehow involved a monkey and a titanic! “I hope everything gets better, in there, Andy, I mean Veronhols!”
Fatehana entered the room with a warning not to read if we have small hearts. Yep, the warning was solid. She was a hella complex person. A chaotic, full-of-energy-with-anything-your-mom-wouldn’t-approve-of one. “Cheers! What’s that? Police? You’d better use your portkey and jump to Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes!”
And the room needed to be rebooted after the frantic entrance. Thank you.
Shannon O’Brien — Unraveling Truths — came with questions. Of life. The ultimate kind of questions. And she hoped that through her words, she could somehow help to reveal it.
Anju Tyagi: She Reinvents. And she found herself a soul in the chair who carried warmth, wisdom, and a slight vibration of pain. She preferred humming to screaming.
Aesthete put this Quiet Reader on her badge. The quiet observer who could be as fierce as waves that strike shores.
Mlblackwell straightforwardly stated she was a person. She arrived with the beautiful chaos of a forest and every being who lived in it. She finally let her guard down and realized that vulnerability wasn’t necessarily a weakness.
For Sushmita Chakraborty | Love, silence & the unsaid — still becoming, writing became the room where she met herself, became a healing process. Peaceful. Honest. Word by word.
Paulia Dianz ❃was an emotional excavator. The one who dug, not for audiences, but to find something inside.
Rohit came quietly with his obsession with words. He wouldn’t want his writing to add more noise in this world. He wanted it to sound how a peace should be.
Stepanus BP signed his name as an Amateur Storyteller, but the wisdom in a coffee shop kind of conversation style of writing told us so much. He cared about details, simple things, and his writing was his way to remind himself that somehow, he existed. Striving to become a better man.
Madhwani Kajal wrote that she was quietly feeling. She felt truer, most honest to herself when she was writing.
Nour entered the room as a writer who felt deeply and thought a lot. She found healing through writing, as it quieted her mind and helped her understand herself better.
Hoorain Zahra claimed she was an innocent civilian. I liked an innocent citizen in real life. But they were constantly being torn apart, shot, and stabbed when the earth split — like that single cracker you fought over with your sister — in every superhero movies. Well, this so-called innocent civilian had started a war between AI’s. Meta answer would be: “Nope, not going to fight your Gem Spartan!”
Ladi Loera was still searching. For what had happened, for what was happening to him. And in the process, he found that who he was, what he did, was not for everybody.
I was starstruck by Brenda Arledge — the Universe Whisperer. The storyteller who felt, who listened to the world and the universe. She came a long way, and life taught her not to be fear for what others thought. Juggling her busy life, one word at a time. And, “Hi to Buddy and Ms Piggy!”
Colleen — Writer, Wanderer. Writing was the easiest form of communication. She wanted to write things that would resonate. That would connect.
Greg M Cole was Encouraging Others while going down into a rabbit hole that would bring him into the unknown writing journey. He knew that each time he wrote, whether it was bad or good, it was a valuable journey.
Syamanthaka was a Crazy Jill. She blended herself with her writings. A joyful voice that could be solace for those around her.
Tanishq marked himself as an unnoticed storyteller. He wanted to beautify the beauty through his writing, not merely to explain or even question it.
alexaroom who still processing, who wrote better when she didn’t fully understand.
Then the last writer arrived. Sneha💝as she was [quietly becoming. ](http://Thank you for your submission, for participating in this challenge, and for stepping from behind your work to meet us all. It's a pleasure to meet you. Your editor, Meta)She became the most honest version of herself when she was writing, and her writing would be comforting and warm.
The room was now full. Fifty writers were counted, and there were fifty stories to be accounted for.
Sriram Yaladandi , Rishita Sharma💗 stood in the corner, smiling. I knew how proud they were of our writers.
I leaned my body on the chair. Realizing, the challenge wasn’t just a writing competition. It never was. Writers came here unmasked. Real. Not to impress, not for perfection. But to be present on the page.
They paused. Thought and looked deeper inside. Some of them knew why and what they were writing for. Some were still figuring it out. They walked through it by writing. One word at a time.
Writing changed them.
Some had writing as their healing process, how they dealt with the raging storm inside, pain from the past, or from existential crises. Writing had become a vital part of their life. Inseparable.
Their stories sat beyond the drafts and notes I made. They went deeper, into my personal vault. Sinking. Absorbed.
And as the day came to an end. I had to announce the winner. That would be crazy hard. To choose one from the many. To choose the one that lingered a bit longer than the rest.
And I took a deep breath, readying myself. Here we go:
[embed]Meet Our Writers — A Writing Challenge Lalindra: Deletes Obsessivelymedium.com
2 — 🏅Do You Like Your Name?
A Writing Challenge by Sriram Yaladandi
One simple question.
One surprisingly powerful theme.
The challenge reminded us that a name is never just a collection of letters.
It’s memory.
Identity.
History.
And sometimes, a story all by itself.
More than 60 writers participated, sharing deeply personal reflections on the names they were given, the names they earned, and the names they learned to embrace.
Here are the writers and their beautiful submissions that qualified for the final selection process.
***Sneha Ghosh — “Do You Like Your Name?” Anju Tyagi — “The One Who Lives in the Heart” Sudipta Sharmin — “Names don’t have religions.” Kareena Kak — “Constellation edition ~ a prompt piece ~” Aishat — “Yes! My name and I were meant to be.” Katarina B. — “The name I was punished with — and the one I love most.” Rebecca Daniels — “Rebecca: Heavy, But Mine” artie — “My name is kind of a tragedy.”***
***Sriram Yaladandi — The Emotional Story Behind The Name My Father Chose For Me.***
***Shannon Marie Mitrovich — “A Name Forgotten, A Name Reclaimed” Steven Gardner — “My Name Became A Sword and Shield” itSumi Haus🌸 — “the story of a name I didn’t like… that gave me the one I loved.” Vinita Sanghi — “Yes I do — Its an unplanned Acronym” Ellyen Darananta — “A Name No Souvenir Keychain Has Ever Heard Of” Grazi Lee-Sultana — “From rejecting my first identity to embracing it proudly” Omo George-Lawson — “The Names I Built Myself From” Shivani Vishnoi — “Well, don’t know about yours, but I have come up with my answer.” Titiksha — “What my name taught me about who I am.” Raima Ghosh — “A Name Given, A Name Reclaimed” ~Krittika✨ — “My Name” Megha Bagdai — “Megha — A Name Born with Rain” Vishnupriya Ravi Paranjape — “Everyone thinks my name is unique, but it’s far beyond that…” Rahul Sharma — TheOneOverZero. — “The Name I Never Chose (And the 12 million Other Rahuls Who Didn’t Either)” Anuj Sarita — “My Parents did real dirty, and I can’t seem to cope”***
***Purvaa — “If someone whispers in a crowded hallway, ‘Prisha’, I do not turn.”***
***Adil Ali — “Yes, I like my name. And yes, that’s definitely me in the image” Pen & Page — “Some names feel like gifts. Others feel like rooms you never chose to live in…” Dhruvi Turakhia — “Dhruv hain toh Dhruvi hi rakh dete hain. Acha lagega.” Pavel Piatrou — “The Little Name — Spent Years Fighting” Bonnie Sample — “I didn’t always like my name, but now I love it!” Eshwari Reddy — “Why ‘Eshwari’ Means Everything to Me” Fatehana — “Come and Check it out :)” ~usmyy — “Echoes of What I’m Called”***
***Farah — “Is it just my name, I wonder, or is that who I really am?”***
***sita — “Nicknames, traditions, pressure, hey, do you know my name?” Dr Radha Narayanan — “I Wanted to Be Anastasia, Curie, Anyone But Radha” Sushmita Chakraborty | Love, silence & the unsaid — “A common Bengali name, yet an uncommon journey”***
***Biswarupa Mohapatra — “It is unique and truly represents me”***
***Sudeshna Hajra — “All about reflecting my name” Seema Tripathi — “When your name says ‘stop,’ but your life keeps whispering, ‘just one more step…’” Ashlesha Kodaty ✨ — “A writing challenge” Silent Writer — “From Wanting to Change It to Loving It”***
***Dt. Tinna — “Unplanned, Misspelled & still perfectly Mine💃🏻” Hooria Akbar — “I Never Had to Question Mine… Until Now” Dilla Kirana — “I answered to ‘Dilla,’ but the world kept calling me ‘Kirana.’”***
***Paulia Dianz ❃ — “Or how my name became a full-time explanation”***
***Anila Dina — “From Bakhtawar to Anila” Ngozi Anyasi — “When your name means ‘Blessing,’ but answering to it feels like a group assignment”***
***Ravali Akula — “When your personality adds life to your name.”***
***Supriya — “Yes, I Do Like My Name” Ruler Of Twilight — “Promise of God”***
***Mahdia Noor — “A name does not only carry letters, it carries meaning.”***
***Alizah Sandhu — “It’s not just a name, it’s a feeling — full of happiness.”***
***Kalindi Singh — “A name is a tag; identity is what you make of it.”***
***Anee’s Corner🖋 — “My name was a Mistake.”***
***Inthedot — “My name is…” Abhishek — “I Was Confused About Who Named Me — But That’s Not the Real Story” Kathryn Wilewski — “No complaints here! Just a reflection on the origins, plusses and minuses.”***
***Swetha🦢✨ — “We carry it everywhere. We never chose it. And somehow, it still becomes us.”***
***Monika Mahadev — This is not just a name; This is a brand.***
Big thanks to 🌸Preeti Pathak🌸 for curating this list of submissions and helping me finalize the winners and runners.
Below is the List to the Stories
🥇Winner
“When your name says ‘stop,’ but your life keeps whispering, ‘just one more step…’”
Beautifully written, deeply reflective, and emotionally grounded.
This story stayed with us long after we finished reading.
Congratulations, Seema Tripathi💛
🥈Runner-Up
**Rahul Sharma — TheOneOverZero.**
“The Name I Never Chose (And the 12 Million Other Rahuls Who Didn’t Either)”
Humorous, thoughtful, and remarkably relatable.
A clever reflection on identity and individuality.
Congratulations, Rahul ✨
And we’re also delighted to share that Rahul’s story was featured in our sister publication, Bloody Sweet Writers.
🥈 Runner-Up
“When your personality adds life to your name.”
A warm and heartfelt piece that reminded us how identity grows alongside us.
Congratulations, Ravali 🌸
We’re also delighted to share that Ravali’s story was featured in our sister publication, Bloody Sweet Writers.
3 — 🏅A Photo I Almost Deleted Still Lives in My Gallery
A Writing Challenge by Manisha❁
Some photographs are impossible to delete.
Not because they’re perfect.
Because they carry a piece of who we were.
This challenge produced some of the most emotional entries we’ve seen this year.
Stories about loss.
Memory.
Regret.
Love.
And the people who still live inside our photographs.
🥇 Winner
**~usmyy**
“The Photo I Almost Deleted Still Lives In My Heart”
For the people who are not here.
A moving story about memory, absence, and the photographs that continue to hold pieces of those we miss.
The moment we finished reading it, we knew it would stay with us.
[embed]The Photo I Almost Deleted Still Lives In My Heart For the people who are not here!medium.com
Congratulations, ~usmyy 💛
What May Left With Us
Some stories entertain.
Some stories teach.
And some stories quietly stay.
May was full of those stories.
The ones that felt personal.
The ones that felt true.
The ones that reminded us why people continue to write, even when nobody is asking them to.
And those are often the stories worth remembering.
What’s Next: June
June is already here.
New challenges are coming…New voices are waiting.
New stories are ready to find their way onto the page.
We’re excited for what’s ahead…And we hope you’ll be part of it.
Your Editor’s Note
Thank you for writing with honesty.
Thank you for trusting your voice.
Thank you for choosing to share your stories with this community.
We’ll keep building this space carefully.
One story.
One writer.
One meaningful connection at a time.
With love 💞 Sriram Yaladandi Founding Editor — Pen With Paper ✍️
Image Designed by Author — Sriram Yaladandi
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