The Weekly News

I've just had my first acceptance of a short story at The Weekly News, and I thought it might be helpful to post an update on requirements.

This is a family newspaper from DC Thomson which comes out weekly and should be available in most newsagents and supermarkets - somewhere beside the newspapers. There are three short stories in every issue: one full page story of up to about 1500 words and two half page stories. It tends not to publish straight romance, but seems to favour ghost stories, twist in the tail, mysteries and general entertaining stories that would appeal to men and women.

At the moment, submissions should be made to Billy Higgins: whiggins@dcthomson.co.uk. I'm always talking about market research and I learned something with my own submission. BH does not like first person stories but prefers them in the third person. So when he asked if I could change my story into third person and he would look at it again, I did it at once. And he accepted it the same day. It pays to do what an editor asks!

Rosemary