Fiction Ed’s Blog: Fiction Team Update


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Hello, and welcome to this week’s Fiction Ed’s Blog.

Hope everyone’s had a Happy Easter break.

In this week’s blog, I’ll be keeping everyone up to date with what’s happening, here on the Fiction Desk.

Saying Goodbye To Abbie

Abbie’s last day on the Team was Friday, 31 March.

We’re all wishing her well in her new adventure!

Thanks so much for all your lovely messages, which we’ve passed on.

We’re looking forward to catching up with Abbie for a meal at our favourite Italian restaurant soon.

If you are a poet who has been published in the “Friend”, there’ll be more information on the blog next week about who to submit to, in future, and if you’re one of Abbie’s authors, you’ll be contacted soon.

Stories We Need

We’re scheduling into summer now, for our weekly issues, and into autumn, for our Specials.

Christmas stories are welcome now, for “The Magic Of Christmas”, and for our weekly and Specials.

We always need more stories with a word count of 2000 and 3000 words, and fewer 1200s and 4000s.

Annual Stories

We look for stories for our annual, all year round, and these tend to be the most ‘traditional’ of all our fiction.

I’ve already started putting the stories together for our Annual 2025!

For the annual, I’m looking for a 2200-word story for New Year, and a 2200 story with a Remembrance theme.

I’m also looking for some traditional summery stories.

For Our Illustrators

Manon is now on maternity leave until January, 2024.

Please contact me directly if you have any artwork queries – lcrichton@dcthomson.co.uk

When we have a new point of contact for artwork, I’ll let you know here.

Guidelines

I’ll be updating our guidelines, soon, just to keep everyone right up-to-date with what we’re looking for.

I’ll post here to let you know when that’s done.

 

Lucy Crichton

Fiction Editor Lucy is always on the look-out for the very best short stories, poems and pocket novels. As well as sourcing enjoyable content, she enjoys working with our established contributors, encouraging new talent, and celebrating 155 years of 'Friend' fiction!