Fiction Ed’s Blog: News For Poets, Illustrators, And Authors


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

We’ve moved to a Thursday morning slot, for the moment!

This week, we’re catching up with news for our poets, illustrators, and authors.

News For Our Poets

“Friend” Poetry Editor, Abbie, has now left the magazine, for new adventures.

Our new Poetry Editor is Tracey Steel – tsteel@dcthomson.co.uk

Tracey is your first point of contact if you’re a poet who has already had work published in “The People’s Friend”.

If you’re a published “Friend” poet – please submit poetry for consideration during the first week of every month only, not throughout the month.

This will help submissions flow through more smoothly.

News For Illustrators

Commissioning Illustrations Editor, Manon, is on maternity leave for the rest of 2023.

I’m delighted to say we’ve now been joined by Karen Milne, who is the new point of contact for all things illustration-related, here at the “Friend”.

Karen joins us from our sister publication, “My Weekly”.

It’s a real pleasure to welcome Karen to the Team!

For illustrators who have been published in the “Friend” – Karen’s email is kmilne@dcthomson.co.uk

News For Abbie’s Authors

If Abbie was your assigned editor before leaving, you have now been reassigned to a new editor.

To keep things simple and quick – if your surname is A-F, your new editor is Tracey Steel (email address above).

If your surname is G-O, your new editor is Alan Spink (aspink@dcthomson.co.uk)

And if your surname is P-Z, your new editor is Lucy Crichton (lcrichton@dcthomson.co.uk)

Keeping In Touch

If you have any questions at all, please don’t hesitate to be in touch with your assigned editor.

Naturally, as we adapt to being a smaller team, we’ll be dealing with an increased volume of queries.

We’ll be in touch when we can!

And Finally – One Year On

And finally – next week will be one year since we returned to working in the office.

Where has the time gone?!

For now, we’re still working in a ‘hybrid’ way, partly in-office and partly from home.

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!