Wednesday 16 March 2022

Over To You


Womag news

My womag news – Over the last week I've sold to My Weekly and Yours. All sales are good of course, but I'm especially pleased about these as it's been a long time since I had an acceptance with either of them. In the case of Yours that's partly because I didn't sub for quite a few years (due to them taking all rights during that period). With My Weekly I obviously just wasn't sending quite what the editors wanted.

Do you have any womag news?

Are you researching, writing, subbing? Had any acceptances or rejections? Any other news?

Feel free to use the as a picture prompt. If you'd like other writing prompts, short exercises and story/scene suggestions then you might find this book useful.

Free entry writing competition news

There's still (just) time to enter the BBC National Short Story Award. The prize is £600 – for runners up! Top prize is £15,000.  The rules refer to 'the extreme volume of entries' so our chances aren't high, but somebody has to win, don't they?

I have sent a few entries but no successes to report. 

I'd love to hear your competition news, if you have any.

Call for submission

The Black Spring Press are inviting poems for an anthology to raise money for Ukrainian refugees.

Other stuff

Do you have writing tips to share, questions to ask, or suggestions for this blog?

18 comments:

sally jenkins said...

Congratulations on those sales, Patsy!

Marguerite said...

Congratulations on your subs, Patsy! I have now properly joined Secret Attic and from this week, there has been a flurry of comments on the stories as they are uploaded. I feel this will be helpful in improving my writing over time. My usual Writing Magazine monthly contributions... ONE day I will get in the shortlist... maybe...

Alex J. Cavanaugh said...

Congratulations on the two pieces!

Sheelagh said...

Congrats on those acceptances, always great to get some from ones you've almost given up on. Not much to report from here except an acceptance from GreenPrints U.S for a gardening story which is lovely. Need to get on with doing some writing & submitting next. Thanks for all the information about same, really helpful as usual.

New girl on the block said...

Congratulations, Patsy! I've had a disappointing week - 2 rejections from Woman's Weekly, and a postponement of pub date for a story in Spirit and Destiny - originally August 2021, then May 2022, now 'definitely this year'.....we'll see!

Patsy said...

@ Sally – Thank you.

@ Marguerite – Feedback is generally a good thing in lots of ways. I hope it's beneficial to you.

@ Alex – Thank you.

@ Sheelagh – It's good to sell to somewhere other than the few places who most frequently buy my work – although of course I greatly value those markets.

Well done on your sale!

@ New Girl – How frustrating. You'd think that would be one magazine you could rely to accurately predict your publication date.

Sue McV said...

Good news Patsy. Are My Weekly still accepting subs only from previously published authors? If so that lets me out. Had an acceptance from Woman's Weekly but no luck with Irelands Own and have given up on a story that I sent to Yours ages ago. On we go...

Charlie said...

Congrats Patsy and those with acceptances, a reject from woman’s weekly this week but got quite a few out there so keeping my fingers crossed.

ados123 said...

Congratulations on your sales, Patsy. I sold a long read to The People's Friend a couple of weeks back that I'm particularly happy about as I so enjoyed writing it.
Alyson

Marian said...

Congratulations Patsy. I've been lucky enough to have another acceptance from The People's Friend and also one from Yours. As you can imagine, I'm thrilled. Well done to everyone else on their news.

Liz said...

Congrats, Patsy.

I had an acceptance from TPF a couple of weeks ago. Other than that, everything is very quiet.

Elizabeth McGinty said...

Congratulations Patsy on your sales. My, My Weekly, Pocket Novel is out today whoohoo. All quiet on short story front, but loads of submissions out there.

Eirin Thompson said...

Congrats to everyone who has had success, and fingers crossed for those awaiting news. Regarding writing tips, I loved this one, posted among others on the People's Friend website recently, by Abigail Phillips from the fiction team:

“Your intuition knows what to write, so get out of the way.” ― Ray Bradbury

Sharon boothroyd said...

Sorry Sue but MW still have a closed list of writers.
I've just heard that Woman's Weekly aren't accepting any stories about the forthcoming Queen's jubilee, so if you've written one, it might be a good idea to sub it to another mag.
Well done on all acceptances!
Does anyone know what kind of stories the new fiction ed at YOU likes?

Anonymous said...

I’ve just had a rejection from Yours. Limited magazine space, apparently. Still have one ‘out there’ with their Fiction special. I entered Best’s pet short story competition. I didn’t rewrite the old story about a budgie that I mentioned in a previous OTY post, but a new one that just popped into my head and developed really quickly. On the subject of Best, I see they have a regular short story slot. Does any one know if they have an open submissions list? I also can’t find any submission guidelines. I’ve also just finished another story - again really quickly for me. Hope to submit that somewhere really soon. Congratulations on your acceptances, Patsy, and to everyone else. Hopefully, I’ll make it into print this year after an unpublished 2021.
Michael D

Patsy said...

@ Sue – Sorry if I got your hopes up about MW. No change there. Congratulations on your sale to WW.

@ Charlie – I think it's a good plan to always have some out, so we always have hop.

@ Alyson – Well done. It's funny how we are particularly fond of some stories or particularly happy about certain sales, isn't it?

@ Marian – Congratulations, and yes I can understand!

@ Liz – Well done.

@ Elizabeth – Congratulations on the Pocket Novel publication!

@ Eirin – That is a great quote. Sometimes we can overthink things, can't we? At least I can!

@ Sharon – Thank you for those updates. I did email the new ed asking for info (and inviting her onto the blog) but haven't had a reply.

@ Michael – Unfortunately all the magazines receive more stories than they can use. It must be frustrating for the editors as well as us not to be able to publish more of those they particularly like.

As far as I'm aware the only way for non commissioned authors to submit fiction to Best is via the competitions.

I'll do my best to keep finding competitions and other opportunities as well as magazine news, so you and my other blog readers have a good chance at getting published.

Kalpana said...

Congratulations on the submissions. I love the picture and would use it as a writing prompt but I'm up to my neck preparing for the A to Z Challenge.

Patsy said...

@ Kalpina – I'll let you off this time then!

UPDATE re YOU magazine – The editor has now replied to me and the guidelines will be on the blog soon. She may also be doing a guest post!