A Writer On Writing: Become a Weekend Writer
Sally Jenkins offers more tips to budding writers on getting into print.
Do please visit Sally's Web site http://sallyjenkins.wordpress.com
If you’d like to get published in the weekend newspapers have a look at my article in the February 2011 edition of Writing Magazine. http://www.writersnews.co.uk/main/wm.asp
It’s extremely difficult to get a feature in one of the weekend nationals unless you have a well-established track record in journalism. However, many of the papers have ‘filler’ slots and actively ask for people to fill them. To list just a few:
Confessions of a Tourist in the Sunday Times http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/travel/news/article7143803.ece
What I’m Really Thinking in the Saturday Guardian http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2010/dec/11/what-really-thinking-godmother
Just Back in the Saturday Telegraph (which I seem to have missed out of the article) http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/travel-writing-competition/7954685/Just-back-searching-for-Cyril-in-Normandy.html
There’s also the letters’ pages to consider (the tabloids tend to pay whilst the broadsheets don’t) and have a look at your local regional weekend papers – these are often easier to break into than the nationals, especially if you have a story with local human interest.
As always market research is the key to success with any of these markets – buy and read several issues before you submit. It’s essential to get the tone and content of your piece just right.
If you’d like to know more about this area of writing then have a look at the full article in Writing Magazine.
