An alternative?

OK, so this is just a one off, but books and the city and heat magazine want to "find and publish an exciting new women’s fiction short story writer". They're doing that via this free to enter short story competition.

Thanks to Maria Smith for pointing out this might well be of interest to womagwriters.

If you're interested in trying more writing competitions, do take a look at my other blog; I regularly post links to free to enter contests for all forms and genres of writing.

Another Woman's Weekly update!

I've recieved the following email from Danni Dawson, the new fiction editor of Woman's Weekly and am copying it here with her permission.

Hello.

Apologies for the round robin.  I am writing to introduce myself and to say that I am very much looking forward to working with you. 

I will try to respond to everyone who has emailed me individually as well.  As you can imagine, I'm snowed under with emails at the moment but I am hoping I can clarify a few points here. 

Although this is a period of huge change, Woman's Weekly and the kind of fiction required has not changed. With your help, we will continue to publish the same brilliant fiction we have always been known for.

The guidelines will stay the same. We still need exactly the same kind of stories for Woman's Weekly, i.e:  

1000 and 2000 for the main magazine. Plus serials.

Longer stories for the FS. I am currently short on longer stories, around the 5000 mark, but need all other lengths too.  Varying subjects and themes. Longer crime would be good.

Family stories, relationship stories, crime, humour, romance, period, etc, for both titles.

At the moment, I can only accept submissions via email to this address from our regular contributors, which includes you - as you are receiving this email. 

However, it is very likely that I may have missed some people. I'm happy for you to forward this to anyone who is a regular contributor, or who has been in the past.  I have been associated with the magazine for a long time (in the background), so hopefully will recognise them.

Finally, we are NOT closing the doors to new writers indefinitely.  I just need to get on top of things first.   In future, I anticipate that I will be open for submissions from Regular Contributors ALL the time and open to submissions from ALL writers SOME of the time. I can announce when this is happening on our guidelines, or on social media such as Womag. 

If you have emailed me individually, I will get back to you.  Please bear with me!

Many thanks and my very best wishes.

Danni

A message from Clare at Woman's Weekly

I've just been asked, by Clare at Woman's Weekly, to post this message here ...

'In light of the restructuring at Woman's Weekly, it has been decided to suspend the acceptance of unsolicited stories for the time being.  We hope to reinstate them at some point in the future.

Any that have already arrived in this office or that are in transit will be returned to the sender with a note saying the above.

We thank everyone for their interest and wish them good luck with their writing.

Many thanks, Patsy.

Best wishes.

Clare X'

UPDATE Clare has sent a clarification ... 

'When we say "unsolicited" we mean the people whose stories we haven't published before, not our regular writers.'

If anyone has any questions, feel free to ask them here and I will do my best to get you answers.

Please don't contact me directly about this (I'm so swamped with queries I'm feeling very sympathetic towards fiction editors!) – I will pass on anything I learn via this blog.

Changes at Woman's Weekly

There's a big, and sudden, change at Woman's Weekly. The entire fiction team of Gaynor Davies, Clare Cooper and Maureen Street are leaving this Friday. I know I'm not alone in being very sorry to hear this and in wishing them well for whatever they do in the future. I'll miss working with them.

An email to 'regular writers' states that 'After 18th August, the person to send your stories to is Danni Dawson'. There's a new email address for those who currently submit by email. If you submit by post, then address them to Danni Dawson at 

Fiction Department

Woman’s Weekly
Time Inc (UK)
161 Marsh Wall
London

E14 9AP 

I do hope that will be the end of the changes - it might not be.

A vicious circle?

I'm currently away from home (please excuse a holiday picture with only a tenuos link to the subject!). As I believe I have a story in Woman's Weekly Fiction Special, I've been looking in newsagent's and shops in the hope of seeing a copy. No luck - nor for Take A Break's Fiction Feast.

The problem of getting hold of the magazine is what prompted me to subscribe, but I travel a lot, so often don't see them until weeks after publication date. It seems it's that, or not see them at all.

Are these magazines not popular enough for shops to stock them, or are the general public unaware that the magazines offer monthly fiction specials?

If you read any magazines containing fiction, how do you get hold of your copies?