Shirley Blair is leaving The People's Friend

It's not happening yet, and somebody suitable will replace her and ... It's probably best if you read her blog, where Shirley explains that's she's leaving The People's Friend.

I've met Shirley and communicated with her via numerous emails and she's always been friendly and helpful. Many writing friends have said how nice she is and how she's encouraged them with their writing. She'll be greatly missed and a very hard act to follow.

(I'll have more to say later, once I've got over the surprise.)

Up to you!

I post information, on this blog in the hope that it will be of use or interest to others. I use information I've discovered, or am provided with, in good faith. That's it.

I'm not paid by the magazines (other than when they buy my stories – if they do). Making a post about a publication gains me no advantage with them (although it may do the opposite in some cases!). I'm not endorsing any publication, nor am I responsible for their policies, nor the opinions of those leaving comments.

Personally I don't give up all rights to my work and don't submit work to publications which receive money yet pass none of this to the fiction authors. If you wish to do either of those things yourself then it's entirely your decision. We're all different and write for different reasons and with different expectations.

As writers we can criticise each others choices, we can ostracise those who feel or act differently, and make them reluctant, even afraid, to express opinions in groups, blogs, social media etc and to write under pen names to avoid a possible backlash. Or we can accept that it's hard for all of us and offer support, advice and friendship. That's what I try to do. Again which route you take is entirely your decision.

New market for womag fiction

I've had an email from the fiction editor at Yours magazine.

"I’m getting in touch from Yours, a national women’s magazine, to ask if you possibly might be able to share news with your readers that our new sister title, Yours Fiction, is actively looking for short story submissions from writers. As I’ve seen a few articles on your website about various places people can send short stories, I thought this might give another platform for writers to be paid and published for their work."

As any increase in opportunities to have short stories published is very welcome, I'm only too pleased to share this news. 

Yours Fiction is quite new – I believe the second issue is currently in the shops. It contains 26 stories per issue. Submission guidelines are here.

Note Yours take all rights for the stories they publish.

Update 14/12/19 – This market no longer take all rights.

Guidelines for Yours Special seem to have been removed. Here are the guidelines for the regular mag – https://www.yours.co.uk/life/home/yours-short-story-guidelines/ 

Woman's Way

Woman's Way is an Irish magazine currently open to submissions of fiction. 

Bad news first – They're not currently in a position to pay.

Slightly better news – They don't claim any rights over submissions, other than those required to publish the story in the magazine. It's also possible that they may consider stories which have been previously published. If you want to send something in that category, for which you retain rights, I suggest stating when and where it was published.

All stories must be in the 800-850 word range as they don't have the space for anything else. If you require more information on submission requirements then please contact the publication directly – there's a form for this here.

Woman's Way are currently running a Christmas story competition. There are some very nice, literary themed, prizes on offer for this. More details and entry form can be found here.

Woman's Weekly to stop publishing serials.

I heard a rumour some time ago, and today have had it confirmed that Woman's Weekly are to stop publishing serials.

Over to you

This month's discussion topic – Where do you get your ideas from?

Here's another monthly random photo for use as a story prompt. 

Please share success (or otherwise!) report any womag news, tips, advice you may have, make womag related comments or observations and ask questions – and answer them too if you can help.

 (If you have news or a question relating to a particular magazine, it's also fine to add it as a comment to the latest post for that magazine.)

Re-using short stories

After my stories have been published* or placed into competitions, I put them together in themed collections. The latest of these, Slightly Spooky Stories III is out now. As you may have guessed these are 24 ghost stories and the like – not too scary as they're mostly womag type stories.

I've also produced four collections each of garden and family related stories, three of romances, one concerning time and one about work. You can find them all, plus my other books, here, if you fancy a nose – or even want to buy one or download the freebies.

*I can because I retain the right to do so. For those who give up all rights, this isn't an option.

What do you do with your stories after they've been published? (If you'd like to put a link in your comment, I'll add it to this post, so everyone else can see.)




Fay Knowles has produced Sunbeams from the Heart - A Collection of 12 romantic short stories.

Sorry ....

I've just had my sixth anonymous spam comment of the day, following on from 13 yesterday, and have therefore disabled the ability to leave anonymous comments. I didn't want to, as I know a) Not everyone has a Blogger account and b) There are sometimes good reasons for choosing to leave comments anonymously and c) I want to encourage rather than discourage people from leaving comments. However I'm getting so fed up with the spam, it was this or stop the blog.

On the plus side (I do try to find positives!) I probably don't need to moderate comments now, which will save me time and mean they appear immediately.

There is still a way to comment anonymously if you wish. It's a faff, but you can set up a separate Blogger account with a nickname or pen name.

There's no need to have a blog in order to comment here – you can create an account without going on to do that.

If anyone has a brilliant suggestion for avoiding spam and still allowing anonymous comments, please let me know!

Over to you

This month's discussion topic – Which womags do you read? And how do you get hold of them? Subscribe, buy from a newsagent, via Readly, borrow from a friend, in the library, something else?

Here's a random photo for use as a story prompt. 

Please share success (or otherwise!) report any womag news, tips, advice you may have, make womag related comments or observations and ask questions – and answer them too if you can help.

Oustanding stories and response times.

I know I'm not alone in having had stories accepted by Woman's Weekly on the old terms, eighteen months ago, and not yet used. A month ago I asked for an update, but have not yet had a reply. Oddly even some writers who now submit stories on the new terms, but for the old pay rate, are in the same situation – including the lack of information about the older stories. It seems they're hoping that if they ignore this issue it will go away!

Take a Break have also had some of my stories for quite a time, without being either rejected or accepted. My recent query into these was answered promptly, to say that they are still under consideration, but that if I wished to withdraw them the fiction editor would understand. Slightly frustrating not to get a definite answer, but at least I know they, or the response, haven't just got lost and I'm not being ignored.

Some magazines only respond if they wish to publish the story. With The Weekly News, if you've not heard after three months it's a no. (My story in this mag last week is pictured - thanks, Carrie!) The same applies with any version of Australian magazine That's Life!, but after six months, and Woman's World after four months.

With My Weekly, there's also a four month cut-off period, but the editor also sends out new guidelines every other month and confirms that stories submitted up to a certain date have all been considered. (If you're one of those permitted to submit to My Weekly and don't get these updated guidelines, do ask to be put on the list. They're very helpful.)

The People's Friend always reply to every submission. There's more information on how they do that here. Don't be too disheartened if all you get are the standard rejections. I did too, lots of them over a long period, until I got my first acceptance with them.

South African magazine YOU also reply to all submissions, usually within three weeks. I'm told that Yours also reply – eventually!

Some other magazines don't always reply and have no definite cut of period. These include Ireland's Own and Allas. Prima don't respond to submissions / competition entries unless you're the winner.

Please not, Take a Break, That's Life! and My Weekly only accept submissions from those on their lists of approved authors. The others are open to submissions from everyone. If you'd like to know more about submitting to any magazine, click on its title below this post, or from the list in the right hand column.

Any ideas?

Over on the People's Friend Blog, Lucy Chrichton has asked "Where has all the fiction gone?"

What do you think? Has it just been reduced because of the reasons she suggests, or are there other factors?

As a reader, does the inclusion of fiction make a difference to whether or not you buy a magazine?

Spam and comment moderation.

I've been getting a lot of spam on the blog – far more of those than real comments – so I've enabled comment moderation.











I won't be moderating your replies any more than previously, simply checking that they're actual replies to the post, not someone offering any one of a range of dubious services.















When I'm out in the van* I don't get online very frequently, so there may be a delay in any comments appearing. Sorry about that.












Talking of comments, if you leave one anonymously PLEASE try to remember to give yourself a number, initial, nickname etc, so people can easily reply to you.








*the pictures are recent views 'from the office'.

Over to you

This month's discussion topic – How long do you wait until deciding a story hasn't been successful, and do you 'chase up' a reply if you've not heard back?

Here's another monthly random photo for use as a story prompt. 

Please share success (or otherwise!) report any womag news, tips, advice you may have, make womag related comments or observations and ask questions – and answer them too if you can help. (If you have news or a question relating to a particular magazine, it's also fine to add it as a comment to the latest post for that magazine.)

My own 'news' is that I'm presenting a workshop on creating characters and bringing them to life through dialogue, on 7th September in Nottingham. It's £10 if booked in advance – not bad for four hours?

A very friendly reception

Our travels in the 'mobile writing retreat' took us to Dundee. We visited some of the major attractions, such as the historic ships, Unicorn and Discovery, nearby castles and of course the DC Thomson office. Despite knowing the address by heart, from sending so many submissions, I had a job locating it, but when we passed Bash Street knew we must be close.

Shirley Blair was very friendly and welcoming, as were the rest of the fiction team, and editor Angela Gilchrist.




Starting top right, there's Sarah Holliday (illustrations) Lucy Crichton, Shirley, me and Tracy Steel. (Yes, I was given tea in a special People's Friend mug!) Angela somehow escaped being in the photo, and 'my' editor Alan Spink was on holiday.

I also met Jill Finlay, former fiction editor of The Weekly News, and the first editor ever to accept one of my stories.

Of course I didn't just chat – I snooped about and asked questions.

The office was very tidy and modern looking, with most work done on computers. The stacks of paper you see are submissions. Due to increased numbers of these, and the 150 year celebrations, there are still some stories sent in April waiting to be read. I asked if any restrictions would need to be brought in to cope with the rise in submissions and was assured there are no plans to do this. Stories by new writers are very welcome – but please be aware it might be quite a while before you get a response. It's felt that although readers enjoy stories by favourite regular authors, they also like to see new names and enjoy quite a wide range of genres.

I tactfully refrained from photographing the fridge full of cheese, but here's the litte red box, containing details of all the stories 'in stock'. (That's those accepted, but not yet scheduled.) It's relatively empty, as Shirley has just scheduled the September issue and a special. Despite the heat (and it really was HOT in Dundee) she's now working on early winter and Christmas stories.

I had a riffle through and recognised quite a few names. Each card contains details of the author, the story, and comments for the illustrator, just to jog memories. The illustrator reads the whole story and may suggest illustration ideas.

There weren't many 3,000 word stories in the box. The entire fiction team mentioned wanting more at this length. Well most mentioned, one pleaded! 200 of these are needed each year – it's 300 in the case of 2,000 word stories, but these are recieved in large numbers.

Stories stay in the box for varying lengths of time, as each issue requires a mix of story lengths, styles and genres. It's possible that a seasonal story might not get included in the appropriate issue for that year and so be kept for the next, or the annual, but that's unusual.

Talking of a good mix – it's to get a good balance that story titles may be changed. Shirley said quite often stories have fairly similar titles, so these will be altered. If a character name is used in more than one story in the issue then this too may be changed. Shirley says she prefers not to do this, as she knows authors take care to select the right name. That suggests unusual names might be a good idea, but Shirley cautioned against those which a reader 'doesn't know how to say in their head'.

I asked for a top tip for new writers and was told, 'include dialogue'. A story is 'most unlikely' to be used without any. (I'm presenting a dialogue/charaterisation workshop in Nottingham in September)

My own tip is to check out Shirley's blog. Along with all kinds of advice, she provides story prompts (there's no requirement to use these, but if you do then let her know as she enjoys seeing how one image can lead to very different stories).

After leaving the fiction desk (via the cake shop Shirley directed me to!) we went up Law Hill to see the 'Our Wullie' painted by Sarah. The building over his hands is the DC Thomson offices.

Picture credits – Mr Patsy ;-)

Writing workshop in Nottingham.

Nottingham Writers' Club have a four hour writing workshop in September. It's not exclusively aimed at womagwriters, but the subjects covered are important for that genre – and the presenter has sold hundreds of stories to that market!

Maybe I'll see you there?