Monday 26 April 2021

A couple of things

Just a couple of quick updates today, as I'm madly busy. The enthusiasm which wained somewhat under COVID concerns and restrictions is back and attempting to make up for lost time!

Perhaps part of the reason for that is that I'm recently back from a few days on a sunny beach? It wasn't exactly hot, and a lot of time was spent on my other job, but I did manage a paddle in the sea each day.

Free to enter writing competition / womag news

Thanks to Alyson Hilbourne for sending me the link to the latest Best magazine short story competition. There's £500 on offer for a summer story of up to 1,200 words.

Womag news

The People's Friend are now allowing emailed submissions from 'new to them' writers – a very welcome move. Full details can be found here.

UPDATE Sorry, it seems the link for the Best competition isn't working for everyone. Here's a screenshot –



11 comments:

Marguerite said...

I think I will wait until late June to even think of paddling - too cold! At least you've done it, Patsy!
That is wonderful news re PF for us unsolicited people - as long as they don't get besieged by a deluge and then stop it completely - that would be a shame. It's up to us to be sensible submitting, I feel.

Charlie said...

Thanks Patsy but the link for the Best comp doesn’t seem to be working.

Patsy said...

@ Marguerite – I totally agree. It's good news, but if writers want to convince the PF fiction team they've made the right decision it would be a good idea to be restrained about the number of submissions people send.

@ Charlie – Not sure what the problem is/was but I've re-input the link and also added a screenshot. Hope you can see one of those.

Jackie Sayle said...

Thanks for this, Patsy.

Wendy said...

Excellent, thanks for the link to the competition. The pdf downloads beautifully.

New girl on the block said...

I recognise the feeling of starting to get energy back as lockdown eases! Also great news that TPF is moving into the 21st century and allowing email submissions from us newbies. I totally agree about pacing the submissions though - I've just got one that's ready to go.

Eirin Thompson said...

Thanks, Alyson and Patsy, for the Best competition link. Looking at the terms and conditions, I did not see any mention of Hearst taking all rights to all sumbitted stories - so if your story isn't placed, it's yours to submit elsewhere. Is that how everyone else is reading the situation?

Secondly, in an earlier post a correspondent asked if anyone had submission guidelines for Ireland's Own. The last time I enquired, I was advised that fiction submissions should be a max of 2,000 words, having good general appeal developed through a well-explored story-line, with an Irish orientation where possible. They wanted seasonal submissions three months in advance. While they were encouraging, they also pointed out that they had a considerable stockpile of accepted material, and a large corps of regular contributors who looked after most of their needs. Hope this is helpful.

Charlie said...

Thanks Patsy that’s brilliant.

lionsshare said...

Great news about email submissions to PF. Will those of us who sent postal subs and are still awaiting a response because they haven't been looked at yet (even after a year) be able to re-submit those stories by email? I really hope so - at least we can finally get a yes or no and submit the stories elsewhere if they are not wanted. Thanks for the update, Patsy.

ados123 said...

@Eirin Thompson - that is how I read the Hearst rules, but I haven't submitted anything I've sent them anywhere else - yet. Thanks for the update on Ireland's Own. I've sold them a couple of stories in the past.

Thanks for the blog as always, Patsy. Good luck with your writing.

Alyson

New girl on the block said...

I emailed my story through to TPF and got a rejection the next day! Disappointing, but impressively quick, and at least I know I can now send it elsewhere.