Guest post by Liz Filleul

Back in 2019, I submitted my first story to The People’s Friend – a 9500-word ‘long crime read’. It was set in Van Diemen’s Land (present day Tasmania) in the 1830s and featured a convict constable called Will Grafton. To my delight, the story was bought four months later and published in a May 2020 People’s Friend Special, titled ‘The Convict Constable’. I followed it up with two more long crime reads featuring Will, which were published by TPF in May 2021 and May 2022. I’ve written a good many cosy crimes for TPF since, but these convict constable stories have always been among my favourites.

As womag writers will know, stories are sold to TPF under a ‘shared rights’ agreement. Once they’ve bought the stories, they can republish them, and so can the author. I’d always hoped that one day I might have written enough convict constable stories to be able to publish them in book form. I was midway through writing another Will Grafton long crime read for TPF  when DC Thomson briefly republished the three convict constable stories in ebook format in 2024.

This move galvanised me into finally doing something about that book of convict constable stories. In my files, I had a convict constable story that TPF had rejected as being a tad dark for their readership. I had the story I was halfway through writing. I had ideas for a couple more stories. And, of course, I still had shared rights to the three published ones. 

While self-publishing was an option, I decided to try traditional publishing first. I had a good track record as a writer of short crime fiction. I’d won the Scarlet Stiletto Award (a prestigious short crime story award in Australia), been runner-up three times, and had taken out category prizes like Mystery with History. And I’d had ‘solve it yourself’ mysteries published in Woman’s World in the USA in addition to the dozens of cosy crime stories and the three mystery serials I’d had published in TPF. Plus one of my convict constable stories  – which TPF had  titled ‘Dead Men Tell No Tales’ – had been a finalist for the Derringer Awards, run by the Short Mystery Fiction Society in the US, in 2023. 

I emailed Lindy Cameron, who runs the Australian small-press genre publisher Clan Destine Press, and asked if she would be interested in considering a collection of convict constable short stories. I explained that there was a shared rights agreement with DC Thomson for three of the stories, but that the majority of stories would be new. 

To my surprise, she contacted me almost immediately. Unknown to me, Clan Destine Press had recently started a new imprint for short crime stories called ‘Crime Waves’; the first two collections had just come back from the printer. She was interested in considering my collection for this imprint. We ended the call, with me agreeing to submit a 70,000-word seven-story collection for consideration in early 2025. 

Over the Australian summer of 2024-25, I finished the story I was halfway through and wrote two new ones. I also needed to make some changes to the already written stories, mostly to get rid of any repetition. The three stories TPF had published contained necessary repetition to introduce Will and various recurring characters to readers who mightn’t have read the previous stories. The story TPF had rejected contained similar ‘introductions’ to characters. But in a collection of short stories, which would be read one after the other, that repetition wasn’t necessary. I finally submitted the book in April 2025 and was delighted when it was accepted in January this year.

I thought I’d captured all the repetition until I received my edits! While I’d carefully removed those sentences and paragraphs that introduced characters, other little bits had slipped past me. Like mentioning that Hobart Town’s water storage tower was in Macquarie Street every time a convict maid headed there with her buckets. Or that Elizabeth Street was part of Hobart Town’s commercial area every time Will needed to interview a shopkeeper. More cutting! 

The editor had pinpointed another continuity issue as well. The three TPF stories took place in March, June and September/October 1838. During that time, Will’s relationship with a convict maid, Norah Cottman, developed from first meeting, to friendship, then to romance. But because of the time jumps, the reader didn’t actually see the relationship develop. Those time jumps allowed for natural growth. Not so with the short story collection, which now had Will solving crimes in March, April, June, July, September/October, and November 1838 and in February 1839. Their relationship needed to develop on the page. This was the most challenging part of the editing process for me, turning romantic elements into a romance that needed to ring true to the reader, but didn’t detract from the crime-solving. 

Sentenced Beyond the Seas: The Convict Constable’s Casebook will be published later this year. I’m excited to see Will in book form, and hope people who read the original TPF stories will enjoy reading his other cases, and that he’ll reach a bunch of new readers too. 

Feeling floral

We've visited quite a few big gardens on our recent travels, as well as walking through woods and countryside full of wild flowers. Here are just a few examples of flowers we've seen.

Womag news

People are still getting rejections from TAB. It seems rather a waste of time, as we're told to assume a rejection after three months, and the rejected stories are, as far as I'm aware, all much older than that. In my case, they're nearly all for stories sent and given up on years ago. I've also had rejections for stories TAB have published!

Free to enter writing competitions

Thanks to Alyson for this flash fiction competition from Curtis Brown. Max word count 300, theme landmarks. The first prize is £300. 

The rules state AI must not be used – something I totally agree with, but wouldn't be able to prove I'd complied with. Apparently in some cases, the use of dashes is considered 'evidence' of having cheated in this way, as is the knowledge AI exists. 

Here's a poetry competition with £100 first prize (you'll need to scroll down a bit to find it). Thanks to Aly Rhodes for sending me the details.

Other publication opportunities

Thanks to Alyson for the info that Haiku Shack are looking for micro fiction and short poems. They don't pay, but you can submit previously published work – as long as you did't give up all rights, of course.

btw, if you're involved in any publication, physical or digital, which welcome submissions, doesn't charge a submission / reading fee, and would like a mention on my blog, please get in touch.

From Liz Filleul – Earlier this year, I signed a contract with Clan Destine Press, an Australian small-press publisher, for a short story collection called Sentenced Beyond the Seas: The Convict Constable’s Casebook. The book features a convict constable, Will Grafton, solving crimes in 1830s Van Diemen’s Land. The seven short mysteries include three that have been previously published in The People’s Friend Special. ‘The Convict Constable’, ‘Death Knock’ and ‘Dead Men Tell No Tales’ appeared as 9500-word ‘long crime reads’ in May 2020, May 2021 and May 2022 respectively. 

Patsy has kindly invited me to blog about the work involved in taking those three stories and making them part of a collection that can be read like a novel. So next week I’ll be blogging about the process involved with this. Having just been through the editing stage, I can safely say that it’s been trickier than I initially envisaged!

 

Still travelling

We're still on our travels and having a great time – and managing a little bit of writing. Photos are of 'long strand' on Islay. It's a four mile beach, which we had almost to ourselves for a day and a half. 

Womag news

For those of us not on Twitter, Alyson passed on this by The People's Friend - "Calling all authors! We're currently looking for stories set in August onwards for our weekly, and from late autumn onwards for our Specials. We're also now ready to read Advent and Christmas stories to feature across all 'Friend' publications. All genres and word counts!"

Have you had another bunch of TAB rejections? Me too.

Free entry writing competitions

Here's a short story competition for those who are either unpublished, or have been published no more than four times. Entry is only free until the end of the month.

• Win cash prizes, industry recognition, and a chance to impress our expert judges.

My news

Thanks to Sharon for telling me I have a story in WW. I haven't managed to see it yet, but we're running out of supplies so will be shopping today.

There's a post on the blog on my website about POV, inspired by part of the trip, which you might find interesting. 

Getting away from it all

We're still on our adventures, still having a great time. The pictures are recent views from the mobile writing retreat. I post these daily on Facebook and Bluesky

Magazine news

Thanks to Fiona for the news that Freya at Aquila is looking for short stories (1,000 to 3,000 words) suitable for children 8-13. They're also looking for puzzle writers and historians. 'Basic rate is £150 for 700 words. For non-fiction, send a short paragraph about you with your ideas and a couple of examples of published work. For fiction, send completed short stories. In both instances, email Freya: editor@aquila.co.uk.'

Free to enter writing competitions

Have you written at least one book (fiction, non fiction or poetry) and feel that having time away in an Airbnb property (or more than one) might help you write the next? If so, explain that in Hay Festival's room to write competition and win £1,500 worth of vouchers.

Thanks to Fiona for this competition from The Scottish Wildlife Trust. They want up to 1,000 words in any form, on the theme of changing seasons and Scotland's wildlife and wild places. There's an interesting array of prizes on offer for the winner - plus a couple of small runner up prizes.

Thanks to Alyson for this 6 word competition, with a $100 prize. Hmmm, maybe I do have time to write a whole story after all.

No prize!

We've been doing a lot of travelling over the last week, both in the van on foot. The weather has been (mostly) fabulous and we've taken a great many photos – quite a few work ones for Gary, lots of flowers, and some random scenery. I've even managed some writing!

Free to enter writing competitions

Croydon writers have a monthly 'writer of the month' competition for short stories and poetry. "There is no prize except the satisfaction of having put out some good writing!"

Here's a poetry competition, which will be judged by Aly Rhodes (actually there is a prize for this one - a book token.) Aly says, Obviously it helps if the entrant has visited or knows Saltaire but also though it's not compulsory. If the entrant does win or is a runner up there is a presentation/open mic evening to attend - so travel distance will be a factor.

My news

I've finished the first draft of book 4 in my Little Mallow cosy mystery series! It doesn't have a confirmed title yet, but the first word is likely to be distracting or distracted. That's appropriate in lots of ways, not all of them related to the plot.

If you'd like to know where those steps lead, and join me in a virtual climb, take a look at my website post here. 

And we're off!

We delayed the start of our trip as long as we could, in the hopes of getting the office sorted before we left home. Unfortunately that wasn't possible, so it will have to wait until we get back. That's not ideal, but it is good to be off on our adventures.

Our first couple of stops were to gardens. I took a great many photos, which I've hardly even looked at yet, so the pictures will be trailing behind us. (If you'd like to see even more pictures from our trip, have a look at the blog on my website.)

Free entry writing competitions

Here's a monthly short story competition. The prize is $100 plus 50% of the subscription revenue from your story. Reprints are accepted – provided of course that you've not given up the rights.

A reminder about the Creative Futures competition. The theme is 'material', the competition is for under represented authors, entries of fiction, poetry and creative non fiction accepted. The prize is publication and '£25,000 worth of cash and professional development prizes'.

Womag news

Thanks to Suzan Lindsay for the details of the People's Friend poetry competition. They want - "a poem on the theme of 'reconciliation'. The poem has to have three verses of four lines. The competition closes at noon on 9th May. Email your poem with your name and address to pfeditor@dcthomson.co.uk with 'Poetry Competition' in the subject line. First prize is £150 with three runner-up prizes of £50 plus publication in the magazine."

If you've had a big batch of rejections from TAB, don't panic! Lots of people have (mine are in double figures and some go back to stories I submitted EIGHT years ago!). 

From Vivienne Moles

How do you find what publications you might have been in when they have the rights to place them elsewhere? (Something it's useful to know for various reasons, including claiming ALCS.)

I trawled through a few month's worth of Woman's Weeklys, just to see if any of my BOWW had appeared, as happened with Alyson this month. (I did it the long way 😩 and went through individual ones looking at the 'text preview). Then I had an idea: Haha! If you type your name in Pressreader (My library no longer subscribes, so this is as a non-user), preferably in inverted commas because it narrows the field, snippets of your work pop up and you can see where they've come from, and dates. 🙂

I suspect that might be useful for the Woman's Weekly family? Like Australia, NZ, Woman etc...,? You'd have to have someone with more of a repertoire than me to check that out. I work pretty much exclusively on a laptop and think this might not be so easy with an app (Hate apps! 😠 ) on a tablet. It will NOT find publications that are not in Pressreader. I found a variety of bits, including shortlisted from WM, a letter in the TV times from 2019, Best win and letters to WM.

Vivienne adds that at one time Yours didn't attribute stories, so although some show up, they don't all.

Thanks for this, Vivienne. My library also stopped subscribing to Pressreader and I hadn't realised it was still possible to still search for works, so this is potentially very useful.

The saga continues

The progress of our office installation has been so complicated, changeable and stressful that I daren't give you all the details in case I get a reputation for writing totally incomprehensible and unbelievable bleak nonsense. Let's just say I recommend using Sharps - but only if you want inspiration for unfathomable horror stories.

I'm hoping these flowers will stop me feeling blue about it all!

Womag news

Alyson tells me that Tracey at The People's Friend is looking for more pocket novels. The latest requirements I can find are here – I believe they're up to date.

Free entry writing competitions

On the Premises have a short story competition with the theme of 'Less' which can be interpreted in lots of ways. Maximum word count 3,000. Prizes from $250 for first place.

Thanks to Fiona for this flash fiction competition from Gooseberry Pie. There's $1,100 in prize money and they only want 400 words, so it already felt worth a try. After yet another snag with our office fitting reading the prompt was a bad day getting worse, it felt like a sign! I hope the bit about it all ending up better than expected comes true. 

A note about rights

You probably know that when a magazine buys a story, they don't generally just buy the right to print it once, even when they don't take all rights. Generally they'll require the right to reuse it, often in different formats. For example, they might decide to use it online, in an ebook, or in another magazine owned by the same company. 

It's because of this, that a story which I never submitted to Yours magazine is in the current issue. I wouldn't have known about that, without the combined efforts of Sharon Boothroyd and Sharon Haston. Thank you ladies – now that I know I can claim ALCS.

Btw, one of the flower photos in this post is a reprint from a previous post. Points to anyone who deduces which one!

Not going to plan

The photo is of our lovely new office which was fitted by Sharps in March – except obviously it wasn't. We've had several cancellations and a lot of stress. The problem was that they couldn't get the bubble wrapped pieces you can see, until two days ago. Unfortunately, they don't fit with our order, so the saga continues...

I'm still working on the next book in my crime series, and mostly resisting the urge to change it from cosy to grisly with a massive body count!

Free to enter writing competitions

Thanks to Vivienne for sending me the link to this competition from Toasted Cheese. The theme is festivals. You can submit fiction (as long as it's not in any genre) or creative non fiction. There are Amazon vouchers on offer for 1st, 2nd and 3rd placed entries.

Here's a competition to pitch a children's book. As well as the free competition, there's also the option to pay quite a lot of money to have your work assessed. It might, possibly, be worth it if you're certain you want a career from writing children's books and this is your publisher of choice.

Other publication opportunities

If you have a 'swoonworthy' romance novella of 10,000 to 40,000 words, you might like to consider submitting it to Spotify Audiobooks. Thanks to Liz for telling us about this one.

They only want audio rights, so you can still submit if the book has been published in other formats (as long as you hold the rights), or you'd like to do that yourself. I'm thinking of giving this a try.

Also from Vivienne is the info that Crowvus are looking for memoir submissions in prose, poetry or commentary.

Submission updates

Oh dear - another week when I've got the alert that the blog post is live before I'd finished writing it! I rather suspect that might happen quite often in the months ahead. Still, my cunning plan of posting stuff whenever I can, and scheduling the post is working. I'll keep on with that in the hope that a scrappy, unfinished post with a bit of info is better than nothing.

Photos are from last week's mini literary crime festival. One of the attendees said he uswd to find the blog useful, but hadn't seen it lately. I assured him it's still going, so hope he's found this post. If so - Hello! It was nice to meet you. Have you started editing that book yet?

Free entry writing competitions

Thanks to Alyson for this short story competition from the Jane Austen society.  The prize is to have your story recorded as an audiobook. It all sounds a bit complicated, so please check the website for more details.

Womag news

With Woman's Weekly we're now to assume a rejection if we've not heard back within 16 weeks, rather than 12 as was previously the case. Stories can still be 'placed on file' for possible use in future. If that happens, it's OK to try them elsewhere and withdraw them fro WW if you get a sale.

The People's Friend have again asked for no formatting at all on submissions - incliding not double line spacing, and no page numbers. This is to save them time and they will now not consider any submissions with any kind of formatting at all. This was announced on Twitter. If, like me, you don't use that platform, you can find the deails in my previous post.

New The People's Friend guidelines?

I've heard reports of new, and slightly confusing, guidelines for The People's Friend having been posted on Twitter yesterday. Given the date, and the fact they didn't seem clear, a couple of people have asked me if these are genuine.

I'm not on Twitter, so rely on their website for submission requirements. The 'latest guidelines' there are dated September last year. They don't match what has been seen, by some, on Twitter, and apparently the tweets didn't have the tone of a joke, so I'm not sure. 

When I know more, I'll post an update.

And here's the update, from Alan at TPF.

Hello! Everyone on the "Friend" is very busy, as you know, so from today onwards we won't be accepting submissions that have double line spacing or have formatting.

We also need double quotes for direct speech.

Please DO NOT have headers, footers or page numbers on your document. You must adhere to our word counts. 10% UNDER is OK, but not over.

It's taking up more and more time to get documents ready for our publishing system and that's why we're asking! Thank you!

Surrounded by criminal masterminds!

I'll be spending all of today amongst people who have crime on their minds, as I'm a participating author in a crime literary festival in Lee-on-the-Solent. 

Free entry writing competitions

 Thanks to Alyson for sending me the details of this playwriting competition. We've both had a good look and as far as we can tell it's free to enter. The theme is the climate change. The prize package includes £15,000 and an option to produce yor play at The Globe. You'll need to be UK based and have 'demonstrated a commitment to script-based mediums'. 

Thanks to both Fiona and Sharon B for this poetry competition with a £25 book token as the prizes in different categories.  The want funny poems, which can either be written, or performed and videod.  (Is videod a word? The red line underneath suggests not!)

Womag news

For those of us who don't use Twitter, Alyson and HB have passed on these tweets from The People's Friend - Get writing! We're looking for stories from July onwards for 'People's Friend' weekly, and from September onwards for our Specials. We're always looking for stories for our little annual! And Christmas stories can be accepted from April onwards...

Remember to put all your details on the manuscript. If it's a period story, please put the year it's set. Pay attention to word counts and don't go over.

My news

It's my birthday on Monday. I can't decide what kind of cake to have – what do you suggest?

 Free entry writing competitions

On the Premises have a new mini competition. This time they want two stories, but even if you use the maximum word count for both, it's still only 150. The first prize is $45.

Other publication opportunities

If you're a Scottish writer of romance novels, or a writer from anywhere writing romance set in or inspired by Scotland, then this might be of interest. Thanks to my friend Pauline for passing on the details. She's not a writer, yet is still looking out for interesting opportunities for us.

UPDATE - Sorry, I didn't get around to finishing off this post. There's been 'stuff' - you might know how it is. Still, my plan of adding stuff when I can and scheduling seems to be sort of working. 

Here are some tulips by way of apology.

Just a couple of things

Short post this week, as I've been busy with non writing stuff. 

Alyson Hilbourne suggested sharing this blog post from Kath McGurl on writing dual timelines as she thought it might be of interest to some of us.  I've never attempted writing anything dual timeline. I've read some good pieces written in that style and can see it's a very useful device for the right story, so I'm not ruling it out. How about you? Have you used, or considered using, dual timelines?

I wonder how many of you remember when Kath ran this blog? I don't recall how long ago that was.

Sometime ago, Fiona told us about her experiences on a Hawthornden retreat. You can read the details here, but to sum up, it's a month living in a castle for free, and with help towards transport costs, with nothing to do but write. Applications for next year can be made here.

Looking again

We're making plans for our next trip away in the van (which is why you've got pictures of a previous one). Most of the places we intend to go will be return visits. Things will look different though, as we've always gone in the second half of the year. The biggest changes will be in the gardens and landscape, but even a castle can appear very different depending on factors such as the light, weather and number of visitors.

Writing can be like that too. What we spot when editing just after we've drafted it will be different from what we notice much later - especially if it's been submitted and rejected in that time. Thinking about our intended audience or market, or expected time of publication can also make us read and edit our work differently.

What are you looking for when you read your own work?

Free entry competition news 

Thanks to Dee for telling us about this sonnet competition from New Writers. To enter, you need to sign up to their newsletter, which you can do here. 

Their site is interesting and includes details of lots of other writing competitions and opportunities. Most have fees, but there are some excellent prizes, so you might feel it's worth a try.

And thanks to Sharon Boothroyd for info on the Meetcute competition for romance novel writers from the Kate Nash agency. They want the first chapter and offer a prize of £500 plus representation. UPDATE - We've since discovered that although there's no mention of it until you get to the submissions page, there's a £12 entry fee. Sorry I didn't spot that!

Other publication opportunities

Here's a wrtiing challenge from Chris Fielden. He wants 100 words, with as many as possible being adverbs. Entries,  plus a short bio, will be published in an anthologu which will be sold for charity.

Eleventh Hour are looking for prose which has been previously rejected and since revised. We've all got some of those, haven't we? I'm not entirely sure what you get out of submitting your work there (sorry, I did look but I'm very short of time at the moment.) 

I'm mostly mentioning it because it makes the point that a rejection, or several, doesn't have to mean the end for that particular piece of writing. That was always the case, but with there now being more competition for every fiction slot, there must be loads of great womag submissions which don't get accepted.

My news

I'm taking part in a couple more promotions. This time they're both for books available through kindle unlimited (although they're also on sale). This one is for sweet romances and this one is has a mixture of genres.

What's Best?

This probably makes me sound old, but... It's March tomorrow. How can that be happening so soon? On the plus side, that makes it semi-officially spring now.

Free Entry competition news

Creative Futures have a competition for 'underrepresented writers' with classes for poetry, fiction and creative non-fiction. There will be fifteen winners who will share £2,500 and have their work published. The list of people considered underrepresented, including some I wouldn't have expected, so it's worth looking to see if you qualify.

Here's a short story competition for those who want a better world. The main prize is a year of 'writing guidance by a experienced writer / publisher'.

Womag / competition news

If you're thinking of entering Best's crime story competition, and as there's a £500 prize I expect most of have at least considered it, then you might want to take a look at this post by Simon Whaley. Thanks to Alyson for bringing it to my attention. 

btw, Simon is a useful source of information on many aspects of the business side of writing. It's worth signing up for his emails - unless you're one of those weir people who keep going of for months at a time in a campervan with limited data and internet access.

My news

As a very tiny part of Portsmouth Bookfest, I'll be at the Community Kettle in Cosham on Monday, selling books. If you happen to be in the area please pop in and say hello. No hard sell from me, I promise – and there will be cake available.