diff --git a/publish/post.lib.php b/publish/post.lib.php
index 2292a7e..99b2c73 100644
--- a/publish/post.lib.php
+++ b/publish/post.lib.php
@@ -265,8 +265,14 @@ function send_email($title, $author, $story) {
   $subject = "New submission: $title";
   $headers = 'From: x.x.x Queue <editor@xxx.org.za>'."\r\n";
   $message = "Please review the queue. $author has sent the following new submission:\n\n";
-  if ($story)
-    $message .= wordwrap(preg_replace("#(<br.?/?>|</p>)#", "\n", strip_tags(html_entity_decode_full($story))));
+  if ($story) {
+    // Turn line and paragraph breaks into new lines before the tags are removed,
+    // and decode the entities last, so that a decoded "<" is not taken for a tag
+    $text = preg_replace(array("#<br\s*/?>#i", "#</p>#i"), array("\n", "\n\n"), $story);
+    $text = html_entity_decode_full(strip_tags($text));
+    $text = preg_replace("#\n{3,}#", "\n\n", trim($text));
+    $message .= wordwrap($text);
+  }
   else
     $message .= "<Submission is an image. Review on the site.>";
   $message .= "\n\nhttp://xxx.org.za/publish/edit";