Caroline Deacon
Journalist and author based in Scotland, UK

Readers' comments and suggestions

Dear Caroline

My name is Kathryn and I am currently doing the Writers Bureau comprehensive course of which I find extremely beneficial.
I found your website very impressive and was interested to learn of the many publications of which you have contributed.

My daughter, Amy, is seven years old and autistic. I have had a few articles and letters printed in various publications including local media and the official magazine (Communication) for the National Autistic Society of whom I am a member, regarding Amy and living with autism. Even though I am no expert, I am an experienced parent always on the look out for new magazines/publications who might be interested in my work. The reason I write is to ask for your advice on whether the magazines you have written for would be suitable to submit my work to.

I am quite new to article writing and have found it a little more difficult than writing stories which I enjoy most. However, I would be sincerely grateful for any advice you may be able to offer.

Thank you in anticipation.
With best regards,
Kathryn

Caroline Deacon replies   Writing about any area which involves "expertise" like health or child development is quite difficult unless you have particular experience. You do have this of course, and you need to mention this when approaching mainstream magazines. You should also say you have written about the topic before. These two things will ensure you are taken seriously.
There are two ways of approaching health/ medical/ development features. One is write a factual article meant to enlighten readers about the illness, the second is the case history, where the slant is “how it was for me” – which does enlighten readers as to the illness, but in a different way. This might have a box out at the end with facts about the illness. The former approach would have perhaps two or three box outs which are case histories – normally no more than 100 words each and would normally be written by someone with medical qualification.
The second type is easier to sell if you don’t have a medical background, so this approach needs to be clear in the outline – make it clear that it is your story and that the information about the condition will be provided in a box out at the end. Once you have written a couple of these, it becomes easier to call yourself an expert too.
As to magazines - you will see that there are lots of parenting magazines; however each one will have a very particular age group (for the children) and most of these are quite young. So any about pregnancy and birth would only cover childcare issues for brand new babies, and would only have one or two such articles. Mother and baby, practical parenting and these types, which usually have photos of babies on the cover - tend to cover only the first year or two years after the birth with perhaps one feature going beyond that (but not into school age)
The only two magazines I know which go beyond this are Right Start and Junior, which concentrate on up to 5, and sometimes up to 8. These are the best two to try - they both have very different readership and angle so check them out before you pitch.
You might actually be better off pitching to women's magazines aimed at families - these may not have covered this topic before. There are several weekly and monthy mags which are aimed at older women with children. There are also family sections in newspapers - tons of these - look through regional papers and see which day they have family features, and pitch it to the editor of that section.
Good luck!

Hi Caroline

Thank you very much for your kind reply and the sound advice you have pointed out. This will really help me I am sure and I feel a little more confident now of who to approach with my article/idea. I wrote a big article for the North East Journal back in August 2006 concerning my daughter and living with autism and it generated some good interest and a lot of comments.

Again, thank you so much for your help.

With best regards, Kathryn