Pat Richardson
Writers' Forum spoke the busy Pat Richardson of Best magazine.
She’s fiction, travel and regular features editor for Best, so how does Pat Richardson do it all? ‘Very, very quickly!’ Pat always wanted to write a big historical novel. She did – it took her four-and-ahalf years, and is still sitting in the loft. She also wrote an article for Good Housekeeping and then looked around for other opportunities. ‘I liked the beauty pages. I looked for magazines that didn’t publish them and sent them ideas. I prided myself on being an ideas person. I thought outside the box because I didn’t know there was a box or what went into it!’ Then Pat came up with the idea of beauty cards, a format already familiar for recipes. ‘Nobody had done that and they got quite excited. After a few meetings it was decided to put them into a loose-leaf binder. I got involved in the photography as well as the writing. The idea came off very well. It was suggested I get someone to help with the writing but with two kids, a house and husband, I decided to pay someone to do the housework and do the writing myself! I also did some radio phone-ins. I had a reasonable portfolio and continued for four or five years. Then my husband became very ill and I had to decide whether to run his hardware shop and I had never wanted to do that. So I bit the bullet, sold the shop and moved, and ran the house on my freelance earnings.’ The next 12 years saw Pat moving up the ladder as beauty editor at various magazines. After filling in for the beauty editor at Best, Pat became Dossiers Editor compiling the central eight-page pull-outs.