Monday 13 August 2018

That's Life and Fast Fiction (Australia) submission guidelines

That's Life! is a weekly Australian magazine published by Pacific Mags. That's Life Fast Fiction is the quarterly fiction special. (There's a UK magazine called That's Life, published by Bauer, but sadly they discontinued their excellent fiction page several years ago.)

The fiction editor is Jude Durant. All submissions should be sent to her by email Fastfiction (at) pacificmags (dot) com.au

Stories must not have been previously published anywhere.

One page stories, of no more than 600 words are wanted for the weekly magazine. A few of this length are also used in the quarterly magazine, along with some of around 1,600 words, but most will be in the 900 to 1,100 range.

Jude tells me that dialogue driven stories are preferred. They should appeal to women over 35.

A wide range of genres are considered including thrillers, revenge, sixth sense or spooky stories, romance and feelgood stories. Quirky or amusing 'light bite' stories are welcome, as are heartwarmers and those including animals or children.

Previous guidelines requested that the title, genre and word count be included in the email header and I still do this in case it's useful.

See this post for what happens after your story is submitted.

12 comments:

Susan Wright said...

Thanks so much for this information, Patsy.
It's great to have up to date information, although I was a bit horrified when I read the word counts you've listed because it looks as if I've been sending stories of the wrong length for ages.
The guidelines I've been using give wold counts of 600-650, 1200-1400 and 1600-1800, so all os my current submissions are probably unsuitable!
Do you know when the requirements changed?

Rosemary Gemmell said...

Many thanks for this update, Patsy - very helpful, as always!

carrie said...

Thanks for the update on them, Patsy, really useful.

ados123 said...

Thanks for the update, Patsy. The word lengths do seem to have changed.
Alyson

Niddy said...

Interesting, can't remember ever trying this mag but will have a go although 600 words is a very tight ask, I'm more of a 2k writer so cutting right down is sometimes a step too far.

Anonymous said...

Thanks, Patsy. Wonder when they appointed the new editor. Good wishes. Kate

Patsy said...

I'm not sure when they changed, Susan. I heard a little while ago that they wanted shorter ones now, but it's taken time to get confirmation from the editor.

Patsy said...

Jude has been fiction editor for quite a while now, Kate.

Patsy said...

I don't find the shorter lengths easy either, Niddy.

Susan Wright said...

Well, thanks so much for reporting the changes, Patsy.

I would have been none the wiser otherwise.

Anonymous said...

When I googled Pacific Mags I found that Time Inc is listed on their site. Is this significant? Artisann

Sharon at A Quick Read said...

I've got Katherine Davidson on my guidelines as at fiction ed!