The People's Friend

@JaneLambert22 @UA_Books @Lindahill50Hill @Williams13Anne Meravigliosa!

Happy World Book Day from A Scottish Teashop in Napoli! @UA_Books @Lindahill50Hill @Williams13Anne 'Real heart, sunshine and a smattering of Italian, the story is a holiday in book form' @TheFriendMag

Yay! It's #WorldBookDay2026 Which is everyday for us! Lucy is reading "Vermeer: Lost And Found" by Andrew Graham Dixon, Tracey is reading "The Paying Guests" by Sarah Waters and Alan is enjoying "Adventures In The Screen Trade" by William Goldman! What about you?

(2/2) * Put your details at the top of manuscript * If you're submitting poetry, please put your poems on a Word document and put your name at the bottom of each poem Thank you.

(1/2) Here's a shout out from the Fiction team! * Please DO NOT use formatting on your story * Do not use page numbers or headers and footers on your manuscript * Do not go over the specific word count. You can go 10% UNDER, but not over * Your submission must be a Word document

(4/4) 8. We don't publish children's stories or stories from an animal's viewpoint. 9. Please have your characters speak in the story! Dialogue is important...as is giving your main character a name. 10. We "read what we need" so keep an eye out on here for shout outs!

(3/4) 5. Stories can deal with challenging themes, but should still have a positive and feel-good outcome. 6. Include your details at the top of your submission, which must be a Word document. 7. As always, seasonal stories must be submitted six months in advance...

(1/4) You can never have too many top tips when it comes to writing for the "Friend"! We have our own set of guidelines whether you're writing short stories, serials or Pocket Novels. 1. Read the magazine to understand the sort of stories we feature....

We're always looking for 2000 and 3000-word stories! At the moment we also need: *feel-good stories of all lengths set in summer, and *long reads of around 7500 words from autumn onwards. Seasonal stories always welcome: please submit 6 months prior to the date the story is set.

Our brilliant Wellbeing Special is out now and it's packed with 148-pages of relaxing reading, fabulous features, positive poetry, good mood food and gratitude! Available here shorturl.at/hjega , Amazon and TG Jones!

@MaryJasper2 @ThompsonEirin We hope you're feeling better, Mary! X

@TheFriendMag @ThompsonEirin Congratulations to you all and to the magazine itself! What a great achievement! You haven’t heard from me for quite some time, because I’ve been really unwell, but I am recovering! Perhaps I’ll be able to write something worth submitting in the not too distant future!

A very happy birthday to us! We hit the shelves 157 years ago today! We are the longest-running women's weekly magazine in the world!

If you're a 'Friend' serial writer, please note that our word counts are now 4500 for a first instalment, and a max of 4200 for subsequent instalments. Thanks!

We're thinking of summer! Especially summer fiction! Kick off your flip flops and get writing! All our genres and our word counts, please!

@novelcharacters Hi Hazel. We have no plans to move at the moment.

(2/2) Another thing we ask is for you to put the season at the start of the title. This means when it arrives in the inbox we can immediately see if it has a particular season. We receive a huge number of stories and this will speed things up. Thank you!

(1/2) Top tips from the Fiction Team! If you've written a seasonal story, please submit it six months in advance. We always plan quite far ahead due to organising artwork and the magazine going to press. We need to ensure a good mix of story lengths and genres...

A very Happy New Year to everyone! Here's to more brilliant reading in 2026!

A very Merry Christmas to all our wonderful readers and authors for 2025! We hope you have fantastic day tomorrow and thank you for all your lovely support throughout the year!

What's your favourite Christmas carol? The Fiction Team has just discovered we have about five each!