Fiction Ed’s Blog: For Our Published Authors

With a new submissions process now up and running for authors who have not yet been published in the “Friend”, there’s necessarily been lots on the website pertaining particularly to unpublished writers.

In this week’s blog, let’s switch the focus just a little and talk about our published authors.

If you’ve had one, some, or many stories in our magazine, this week’s blog is for you.

Thank you

I’d firstly like to say a sincere “thank you” to all our contributors, authors, poets and illustrators, who have continued to share their stories, poems and artwork with us throughout this period of lockdowns and uncertainty.

We couldn’t put the magazine together without you, and we know from our readers’ letters and emails how much it has meant to them, in these most trying of days.

Thanks so much for all your effort and patience, especially while we adjusted to working from home, and while emails and other enquiries continue to take a little longer to receive a response.

We’re part of an amazing tradition

Although we’re unable to access the Archive until restrictions ease, the trips that the Fiction team have made there serve to remind us that we’re all part of an amazing tradition and heritage.

The “Friend” is the longest-running woman’s weekly magazine in the world; we’ve been entertaining and comforting readers for 152 years. It’s a privilege to be part of it, and our readers and writers are part of the “Friend” family.

There are no changes to submissions for published authors

The recent change to the submissions process has been for unpublished or USM authors only. Established authors should continue to submit by email to their assigned Editor.

Please don’t use the Friend Fiction email address if you’re a published “Friend” author.

How you can help the team

When submitting, please give your Word Document a file name which includes the Word Count, Story Title, and Season or Date, if any. So for example, 2500 “The Holly Tree Christmas”. We’re asking all our contributors to do this, to speed things up a little when we’re filing stories electronically, and to help us choose which stories to prioritise in our reading queues.

Please don’t use formatting when you submit – no paragraph indents. This helps our Production team.

If you’re a pocket novel author, please number your pages.

Please check the website regularly

Please continue to read the magazine regularly; it really is the easiest way to stay in touch with everything “Friend”-related! And please do check the website regularly – all our most up-to-date information is available there.

If you’re free on Tuesdays at 11am, we have a Writing Hour on Twitter, where you can ask questions or catch up with other authors.

And if you need to contact us, please bear with us if you don’t receive a reply straight away – we continue to deal with a hugely increased volume of email correspondence.

For more from Lucy’s Fiction Ed’s Blog, click here.

For more writing advice, hints and tips, click here.