Womag news and free entry writing competitions

I've had (more than) enough of winter and have decided it's spring! There are signs of it, if you look in the right places.

Womag news

In case you missed Liz's comment on last week's post, she said – "A heads-up that a couple of writers have had stories accepted by Woman's World over a year after they submitted them. Until the past few weeks, writers could assume rejection after around 3 months. Also, recent acceptance emails have been sent out around publication time rather than a few weeks before. This probably isn't an issue for the solve-it-yourself mystery writers as there are no other outlets that accept that format. But the romance writers will need to be aware of it."

I wonder why that is? Could they be short of submissions? The magazine's website is here. I couldn't find any official submission guidelines, but this blog might be of interest.

Free entry competition news

The Tom Grass Prize is for 'a short piece of stand-alone prose in either Fiction or Non-Fiction (1,500 - 3,000 words). It can be adapted from a longer work but must be satisfying to read by itself. ' • Open to emerging writers over the age of 25 from around the world
• £1000 for first prize, and two runners-up prizes, each £500
• Judged by a panel including literary agents
• Submission deadline 31st March 2025
• Fiction, non-fiction or journalistic writing

The current Best competition is for a crime or thriller story of up to 1,200 words. Quite a few followers of this blog have won or been runner up in this competition (I was runner up in the last one), so it's definitely worth a try.

If the t&cs are too small to read, right click on them and save to your desktop - you should then be able to enlarge them (works with any online image of sufficient resolution).

Over to you - and a writing competition

Please share writing related news – successes and failures, details of free entry writing competitions, updates about the womags you submit to, any other publication opportunities, and raise any queries you may have. All these things will help other readers of the blog, and help me to keep it going!

Free entry competition news

Irish Country magazine have another short story competition. I think / hope there will be one every month. The theme is 'an unlikely friendship' and the prize is a year's subscription plus 'an amazing gift worth €200!' I'm counting on one of you winning, so I can find out exactly what that is!

Btw, I had an email telling me I'd not one the last one, so it seems they do let you know one way or another, rather than leaving you wondering.

As always, feel free to use my photos as writing prompts. If you prefer words to images for that purpose, take a look here.

Call for submissions and competition news

Call for submission

Thanks to Alyson for telling me about this call for short stories on the theme of Magi. In theory this is a paying market, but don't expect to earn much, if anything. Anthologies don't tend to sell well, the royalties will be split between the publisher and all other contributors, and they don't pay out until you've earned at least £10. Still, money isn't the only reason for writing and submitting work.

Free entry writing competition news

I'm the runner up in Best's Valentine's competition. I'm not telling you that just to brag, but also to remind you that real people do win these things, so it's worth having a go.

Thanks to Marguerite for the reminder about this gothic short story competition.

The photos were taken on a recent day out at Mottisfont Abbey. There was cake!

Tuesday top tip - Keeping a record of your work

I use an Excel spreadsheet to log when I send a story and when I expect to hear and how much it costs me or how much I get paid if I win or a story is bought. I do not use the Excel spreadsheet to its full extent and admire people who would be able to automatically colour a cell, just because a formula has been fed into the date column: I can’t do that! Green indicates I am still waiting to hear. Conversely, red means I’ve heard, even if it’s a ‘no’. The pink tells me I have ‘used’ the story and it cannot be used again without careful consideration about the rights etc...

Disclaimer: These are not real submissions!

I regularly send to Writing Magazine and sometimes, Woman’s Weekly (used to send to Yours), so on my spreadsheet, I have a colour assigned to each one. 

In addition, I’ve found it necessary to do a quick one-liner next to each of my stories as an aide memoire:

This is on the same spreadsheet but too big to print or put on a web page easily.

If you are not remotely tech savvy and the idea of an Excel spreadsheet appals you, then there is nothing wrong with doing the whole thing by hand on paper with ruled lines. I only use it because it already has ruled lines. The beauty of the spreadsheet is the size of the cell increases as you fill it.

This is not for everybody but the key message here is to record what you’ve sent out. Whether you use a manual or digital method, it will still rely on you logging each submission and the result, whenever that is.

The second part of this came as a result of asking on here a couple of years ago how people ‘remembered’ their stories if they were trying to find a different avenue for them. I couldn’t see an easy answer. I hope this might help a few of you.

This week's tip comes from Marguerite and is in response to comments made recently about keeping track of our submissions.

If you'd like to contribute a tip to this blog, here's what to do

Womag news and free writing competitions

Womag news

Just in case you haven't heard – My Weekly are discontinuing their pocket novels. This doesn't apply to The People's Friend. You can find the guidelines for their pocket novels, and everything else, here.

Free entry competition news

 Thanks to Sharon Boothroyd for passing on the link to this novel writing competition. It's for 'first time writer and as Sharon says, they're looking for something 'literary'. The prize is £10,000.

Sharon also shared this travel writing competition. There's a paid option which offers feedback, or a free option. The prize is $300.

And thanks to Sharon, Ruth and Alyson who all told me about The People's Friend poetry competition.

Do you enjoy reading the wonderful poetry we publish in the “Friend”? Do you ever find yourself thinking, “I could do that”? Well, if you do, now is your chance! Today, we are launching our first ever poetry competition! There’s a cash prize and the winning entries will be published in our "Feel-good Fiction" special edition later this year. The writer of the winning poem will receive £150 and their work will be published in the “Friend”. Three runners-up will receive £50. All you have to do is write a poem on the theme of "harmony”. Harmony can mean a number of different things, and there is no right or wrong answer. It could be friendships or something peaceful, for example. The only thing that matters is that it is your interpretation of harmony. Your poem should be three verses of four lines. Give it a title and email it to us. The competition will be open until March 1, so get your creative hats on! E-mail your poem, along with your name and address, to pfeditor@dcthomson.co.uk

If you fancy trying that but don't usually read The People's Friend, I strongly advise getting the latest issue.  As with their fiction, they have a preferred tone.

My news

Last week I signed books at my local bookshop. Technically it was for my latest book, but I snuck in the entire series, plus my other crime novel.

I'm pleased to report that I arrived with two boxes of books and by the time I left the larger one was empty.

Please note the purple pen!