“The Historical News” is a free, historically-themed tabloid
newspaper that’s published by Southern Historical News, Inc. of Hiram, Ga. This publication has been around for as long as I can remember, and I recall the days when my mother
used to bring copies of it home for me when I was a kid.
Then, just as today, “The Historical News” contained short
articles about the area’s history. Usually, the editions that were distributed
in the area where we lived included articles regarding the history of Monroe,
Baldwin, Clarke, Conecuh, Escambia and Mobile counties in Alabama.
I’ve wanted to have an article published in “The Historical
News” for some time, and I even put it on my “bucket list” last year. Imagine
my surprise last Thursday when I picked up a copy of the October 2014 edition
and found that they’d published an article that I mailed them over a year ago.
In late August 2013, I mailed the editors at “The Historical
News” a copy of an article about the “Mystery Stones of Pine Orchard” that I
wrote when I worked as a reporter at The Monroe Journal newspaper. The article
was originally published in the Jan. 13, 2005 edition of The Journal and it was
later printed in Strange Alabama magazine. Along with my submission to “The
Historical News,” I included a cover letter introducing myself and a
business card so they could contact me if they had any questions (or if they
wanted me to e-mail then the long article so that they wouldn’t have to retype it).
Months and months past, I never heard back from them, so I
figured they’d rejected the story either because it was too long or because of
the unusual subject matter. Several editions of “The Historical News” were also
published during the past year, and I was disappointed to see that none of
those issues contained my story. However, last Thursday I picked up the latest
edition of “The Historical News” and was surprised to see my “Mystery Stones”
story published on Pages 12-13.
I was somewhat disappointed that they didn’t give me credit
for the story and accompanying photograph. For some reason, they didn’t include my byline or photo credit, but I have no
doubt that it’s the same story, a word-for-word reprint of the original article
that appeared in The Journal in 2005. Several writers received bylines
elsewhere in the paper, so I’m not sure why they didn’t include mine. Maybe they didn't have space for it or maybe
these other writers are frequent contributors that they are more familiar with.
With that said, I’ll probably send “The Historical News” a
few more stories now that I know they’ll print them and it's not wasted effort. I’m sure they receive a
ton of material throughout the year, but maybe next time they’ll have room to
include my byline.
In the end, how many of you are fans of “The Historical
News”? How long have you been reading it? What’s your favorite article or
subject from “The Historical News”?
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