Shari Lopatin

Photo by Karolina Grabowska on Pexels.com I joined the Paid Medium Partner Program in August 2023, and by October 2023, I hit the coveted $1,000 income goal.  To clarify, that’s $1,000 in one month. The previous month, I made almost $300. I took a screenshot of my income earnings since August 2023 so you can see what I’m talking about: How Did I Do It? This is the first “how to make money on…

Easily plan your content for syndication across blogs, newsletters, guest posts, and social media with this simple Editorial Calendar Template! Professional magazine editors, communication managers, and newsletter producers use editorial calendars to plan their content across platforms, remain relevant, and ensure consistency. As a professional writer and editor for nearly 20 years, Shari Lopatin…

Increase your chances of getting “boosted” on Medium with this essay template Shari Lopatin created and used to successfully get the majority of her Medium posts boosted, leading to an income of $1,000 in one month! Available in file types: Microsoft Word (.docx), PDF Document (.pdf), and OpenDocument Format (.odt). What You’ll Get from this Template The exact formula Shari uses to write Medium…

Me, Shari Lopatin, as my earlier self – a high school teenager in the 1990s I have VERY exciting news to share with you. I’m publishing a new book later this year! I haven’t published a book since The Apollo Illusion in 2018. Therefore, this is huge, huge, huge. The name of the book is The Condemned: A memoir told through selected early works of short stories, essays, and poetry. It’s…

Are you struggling to jerk your mind out of the daily grind and into creative mode for some seriously awesome writing? Then here are 5 #writingprompts I developed for #fiction writers to help get your imagination juices flowing. #writingcommunity

Photo by Alexander Grey on Pexels.com Are you struggling to jerk your mind out of the daily grind and into creative mode for some seriously awesome writing? Then below are five writing prompts I developed for fiction writers to help get your imagination juices flowing: Fiction Writing Prompts You wake up in a room you don’t recognize and cannot recall how you got there. You find a heavy soccer…

I’m Back to Writing on WordPress, Follow Me for Everything Writing!

Sacred Ground | a poem

I’m Moving All Posting to Substack, Follow Me There!

I have a small, but kinda big, announcement to make. I am consolidating all of my e-newsletters, blogging, and book reviews into one monthly newsletter that I launched today called, “Rogue Writer, by Shari Lopatin.” I’m using Substack for this change, but I’m still keeping my writer’s page here on WordPress. However, if you follow along on my blog for my book reviews, updates on my writing…

For Holocaust Remembrance Day, I Watched a Friend Fall for QAnon and into Anti-Semitism

Today is International Holocaust Remembrance Day, the anniversary of when Auschwitz was liberated and the horror of the Holocaust began to truly reveal itself to the world. Instead of sharing the usual photos of emaciated bodies behind barbed wire and spouting #NeverForget hashtags, I want to offer a personal story—one that’s much more recent and might hit some nerves. However, I think this is a…

Day After #BlackOutTuesday: Dedicating Time to Reading Black Fiction Authors

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

Well, here we are, a day after #BlackOutTuesday. I feel like America went through one giant self-awareness “aha” moment during a difficult therapy session. And now we’re all trying to figure out how to change things for the better. It’s hopeful.

I am certainly no one to lecture, and hell, this fight is nothing new. People of color have been screaming about it for…

White People, Reach Out to Your Black Friends Right Now

This picture above, this is me: a white woman in America. And this post is to other white people in the country we all call home. Because, white people, we have a responsibility to our neighbors of color in this very moment, and we cannot let that responsibility fall away.

White people, I urge you to reach out to your black friends right now and ask them if they are doing OK. Ask them how you…

To Those Who Mourn in Silence (100,000)

© To Those Who Mourn in Silence, Shari Lopatin, 2020

(written 5-28-2020)

  I see your pain in

Silence.

As you curl

Away

Into your private world,

Lost, never found,

And missing your

100,000.

I sink with you

Alone.

And scoff at the smiles

That mock

Your loss.

If silence is your

Cry,

I will join you.

And together we

Will mourn

In darkness,

In darkness …

Does Atwood’s ‘The Testaments’ Measure Up to ‘Handmaid’s Tale’?

Book: The Testaments: The Sequel to The Handmaid’s Tale

Author: Margaret Atwood

Amazon Link: https://www.amazon.com/Testaments-Novel-Margaret-Atwood/dp/0385543786

Stars: 3/5

A solid sequel to Atwood’s famous “Handmaid’s Tale” and worth the read for any true “Handmaid” fan

Three stars. I know. THREE STARS. Perhaps I gave Margaret Atwood’s long-awaited sequel to my favorite novel of hers only…

4 Ways to Tell if Information is Real or Fake: Advice from a Former Journalist

Photo by Aditya Doshi,, https://www.flickr.com/photos/avdoshi/8612921803

When I was a daily newspaper reporter, I always had to navigate through multiple versions of a story before I learned what really happened.

We have a saying in journalism. It goes, “There are three sides to every story: side one, side two, and the Truth.”

The Truth usually falls somewhere between the first two sides, and…

I Have a Right to Protect Myself and My Loved Ones, Too

To all those angry protestors out there, yelling at people for wearing masks, refusing to respect reporters’ requests to stay six feet back, and screaming in the faces of police officers, I have a message for you:

I HAVE A RIGHT TO PROTECT MYSELF AND MY FAMILY, TOO. 

If I want to wear a mask in public, let me wear a mask. If I want you to stay six feet back, stay six feet back. After all, as of…

Read My New Short Story About Mental Health for Free: ‘Pomegranates’

“They say Arizona is a place for folks to start over, and that’s what I had in mind when I landed in the high desert of Prescott. I remember, it was the year the sun rose red over the United Kingdom, and boilin’ wine flowed across the hills of Northern California.”

~ Pomegranates ~

Sometimes, a story reaches so close to your heart, you decide to publish it for free. A gift to the world.

Tha…