New book to celebrate best local newspaper headlines

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"Whistable mum in custard shortage" from the Whitstable Times; "Chair destroyed" from the Westmorland Gazette; or the Hartlepool Mail's "Man stole tortoise to pay for booze" will all be contenders for a new book from publishers Penguin.

The book group is planning an anthology of amusing local newspaper headlines as "a celebration of the quirkiest and best of local journalism", Karen Ings, an experience publishing editor involved in the project, told Journalism.co.uk.

The anthology will be published in 2011 and the compilers are initially looking for a long-list of 100 headlines

"The next stage is to find digital files (or scans from the original papers in the British Library) of the headline and accompanying story for the best examples. I would say the headlines we're after fall into two main categories: 'it must have been a slow news day' and the mindbogglingly strange," said Ings.

Suggestions should be sent to headlinesbook [at] hotmail.co.uk. Contributors whose headlines make the final edition will receive a free copy of the book.