In the March edition of Writers' Forum there is one of those brilliantly helpful Meet the Editor articles, this one by Glynis Scrivens who I know visits this blog from time to time (hello Glynis! and thanks for the article!)
This month's interview is with Julie Redlich, the fiction editor of the Australian magazine Woman's Day. I was delighted to note Julie was brought up in Dorset, my home county, and also that she will accept stories not set in Australia. Brilliant - I'll send her all my Bournemouth stories then!
She receives 40-50 stories a week, and reads them all herself. Hats off to her. It constantly amazes me how hard fiction editors work. She doesn't give feedback, and talks about returning stories rather than rejecting them. (We could start a collection of euphemisms for the dreaded R-word, couldn't we? I still like remarketing opportunities best.)
It's important your story is something readers can relate to. Realistic dialogue is essential, and they do like a romantic slant to the tale, but no overt sex please. Julie will take a mix of mystery, supernatural, humour, crime - but make sure the message is that crime never pays.
There'e one story per issue (it's a weekly mag) and a few more in a holiday special in January - note to UK writers, that means Summer holiday! Preferred length 1500 words, though sometimes they use a 800-850 worder instead.
They buy First Australian & New Zealand rights, so you can send stories which have previously been published, but do state if and where your story's been published in your covering note. They cannot take stories published in UK Woman's Weekly because that is on sale in Australia.
Send your stories to
The Fiction Editor
Woman's Day
54 Park Street
Sydney, NSW 2001
or email as a Word attachment to womansday@acp.com.au
Payment is AUS$350. Expect a response 5-6 weeks after submission.
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14 comments:
Thanks for this, womagwriter! I can never write stories at either of these lengths, unfortunately!
I've just realised that I missed February's WF. B*****!!!! What did I miss? Thanks for this though womag.
Julie's terrific - she's an institution at Woman's Day. If you want to sell stories in the UK as well as in Woman's Day, start with W's Day. You get a response within 6 weeks - a rarity these days. We get WW, Best, MW and PF over here, plus the fiction specials, so she can't use those stories, whereas UK mags are often happy to use stuff already published in Australia
Glad you found the article useful.
Thank you - really helpful. I can vouch for the 'return' rate - I have only tried one story with them so far (but I aim to try more, and it did come winging back quickly. I assumed that was because it was so awful! - but it's good to hear it's normal practice for them!
I've sent them two stories. Thanks for this Womag, you never know.
Julie's great. She's a true professional and a really lovely person too. She always gets back to her writers, and has published quite a few of my stories over the year. Payment is always prompt and never an issue. She's a pleasure to deal with. I wish all fiction editors were like her!
It's interesting that they won't take Best, PF or MW stories. I had always thought it was only Woman's Weekly, as for the others you only sell them FBSR so I'm surprised they're allowed to sell them in Australia.
Does that apply to That's Life Fast Fiction in Australia as well?
I talked to a previous FF editor about this and she said the basic rule is that they don't want their readers to read the same story twice. this doesn't mean it doesn't happen now and again. If you send your stuff here first, you can't go wrong
Thanks, Womag. That's soo useful!
Hi Womag!
Just wondered if you could put a shout out to your blog readers asking if anyone had heard anything about The Lady short story comp? If the results have been announced I want to get my entry sent off to one of the womags!
Thanks
I checked with Janina at The Lady about the short story comp results last month, Calistro, and she sent the following reply; 'Chris, Thanks very much for your message. We're still reading through the hundreds of manuscripts so it is hard to say when the results will be in. But we will contact all the winners personally.'
So I reckon it's probably best to check in the mag or on the website for updates before trying your entry elsewhere.
Was also interested to see the comments about Australian mags. I've had many published with Fast Fiction and there's never been an issue about them having been published here first, but so far I've always drawn a blank with Woman's Day. After reading this, I'm going to give them another try. By the way, Pat Richardson at Best tells me they will be dropping their fiction slot any time now. Pat is due to retire in April and says that, sadly, there are no plans to continue the short story beyond that time. And so another short story market bites the dust.
Woman's Day currently has more fiction than it can use and is rejecting submissions for that reason. I got this information from Julie last week.
How about now?
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does anyone know which places I can email submit? I'm having a lot of problems with my printer and can't afford to replace it yet. I've already sent one story to That's Life (Aus).
Anon - all magazine guidelines on this blog state whether each magazine takes emailed subs or not.
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