Your true stories may be in demand by Chicken Soul For the Soul.
Even if you've never been published before, submit a story. According to Ken & Dahlynn McKowen, co-authors of four Chicken Soup For the Soul books, including Chicken Soup for the Entrepreneur’s Soul, “approximately 40% of the stories accepted by Chicken Soup are from unpublished writers.”
If your story is accepted you'll be paid $200, plus 10 copies of the book you're in.
Here are some STORY WRITING TIPS to help you get started, from Chicken Soup for the Soul's own Publisher and Editor-in-Chief, Amy Newmark.
I recently had the privilege of being interviewed by Amy for her Chicken Soup for the Soul daily podcast and we talked about the transformative power of both writing and reading these stories:
These are the topics Chicken Soup for the Soul is currently accepting stories for (from their Possible Book Topics page) arranged by submission deadline date:
* Counting Your Blessings/Attitude of Gratitude
The deadline for submissions is FEBRUARY 28, 2022.
Gratitude is one of the keys to happiness. Even during the toughest times, if we can find our gratitude and count our blessings we feel better. Back in 2009, when we were going through a deep recession, we received thousands of stories from people who were still counting their blessings and finding their joy. Those stories became the bestselling book Chicken Soup for the Soul: Count Your Blessings.
With today’s worries about contracting disease, joblessness, and rampant divisiveness we thought it was time to revisit this topic. We’re not sure of the title for our next book about counting your blessings, but we’re sure a new collection of stories is appropriate for 2021.
Please share your stories about handling challenges in your life, finding the silver linings, and counting your blessings, whether the challenges you are facing are COVID-19 related or other kinds.
Stories can be serious or funny, but definitely should be inspirational and heartwarming. Attitude adjustments, finding contentment and gratitude, a new way of handling your daily life, and other great ideas to inspire readers to find their own paths to happiness and to remember to count their blessings every day are what we are looking for.
Here are a few suggested topics:
• How do you count your blessings?
• How do you express your gratitude for your blessings?
• How does doing good for others become a blessing in your own life?
• What made you realize that your life is good and that you are grateful?
• Silver linings in the midst of challenging events
• Turning lemons into lemonade
• How do you spread the message of gratitude to your family and friends?
• The joy of simple pleasures
• The unexpected benefits of health challenges or other life changes
• Triumph over tragedy
• Managing financial problems
• Turning negative into positive and the lessons learned from the change
• Adjusting your attitude and seeing aspects of your life in a new way
• Learning to be grateful
• Experiencing contentment with things just the way they are
• Handling economic challenges
• Handling health challenges
• Handling the challenge of grieving
• Family challenges including divorce, death, substance abuse, mental illness, eldercare, disabilities
• Affirmations
• Gratitude journals and other methods for training your brain to be grateful
• Going back to basics, enjoying the simple things
• Downsizing and rightsizing; cleaning out all the stuff and donating it
• Volunteering and charity work; donations
• Approaching each day with a positive attitude
• What worked for you to turn around your attitude or that of your loved ones
* Cats
The deadline date for submissions is MARCH 15, 2022.
Our cat books are so popular that we do a new one every other year. Our feline friends make us smile every day with their crazy antics, their loving companionship, and their amazing intuition. Here is another chance for you to share your story about the member of your family who just happens to walk on four feet… your cat!
We want your true funny stories, your heartwarming stories, and your mindboggling stories about all the simply amazing things that your cat does. What have you learned from your cat? How does your cat improve your life? What crazy things does your cat do? Has your cat ever done anything heroic? How does your cat warm your heart and make you smile? We want to hear all about the absurd antics, funny habits and insightful behavior of your cat. Please do not submit a story about your cat if we have already published that story. We will not republish it.
* Dogs
The deadline date for submissions is MARCH 15, 2022.
Our dog books are so popular that we do a new one every other year. Our canine friends make us smile every day with their crazy antics, their loving companionship, and their amazing intuition. Here is another chance for you to share your story about the member of your family who just happens to walk on four feet… your dog!
We want your true funny stories, your heartwarming stories, and your mindboggling stories about all the simply amazing things that your dog does. What have you learned from your dog? How does your dog improve your life? What crazy things does your dog do? Has your dog ever done anything heroic? How does your dog warm your heart and make you smile? We want to hear all about the absurd antics, funny habits and insightful behavior of your dog. Stories can be serious or humorous.
Please do not submit a story about your dog if we have already published that story. We will not republish it.
* Messages From Heaven
The deadline for submissions is March 15, 2022.
When our loved ones leave this world, our connection with them does not end. Death takes away their physical presence, but not their spirits, and we often sense them after they have gone. Sometimes we see or hear from them after they've passed, and they give us signs and a spiritual link from beyond.
We want to hear from you if you have experienced communication from the other side or received a sign or signal from a loved one who has passed. Has someone who has died come to you in a dream? Given you counsel or comfort? Have you gone beyond, but returned to life with new knowledge, insight, or awareness? Have you intuitively known the moment someone died?
This book is for everyone who has a story, whether religious or secular. Share your true, touching, and astounding stories about messages from heaven or your own experiences with dying and coming back.
* Miracles
The deadline for submissions is MARCH 15, 2022.
Everyone has experienced events in their lives that cause wonder and astonishment. These miraculous happenings are completely and totally unexplainable. Why did these amazing things happen? How did these surprising and bewildering things occur?
We want your true stories, both religious and non-religious, that will awe us with examples of amazing events. Inspirational stories to remind us that each day stunning miracles do happen and that a miracle can happen at any time.
Give us your personal stories about feelings of expectation and hope and the extraordinary events that have happened to you without logic. Did an unexplainable strange premonition make you take a different route home causing you to miss an accident? Did you have an eerie feeling that you should call home… right now, saving someone’s life? Did you find something you had lost long after you had given up hope of ever finding it and after having looked many times in the place it was eventually found? Did something good happen when only bad was predicted?
* Preteens & Teenagers
The deadline for submissions is MARCH 30, 2022.
PLEASE NOTE: Chicken Soup for the Soul is collecting stories for TWO books—one for preteens (ages 9-12) and one for teenagers (ages 13-19). Please choose the right one when you submit your story. The suggested topics below work well for both preteens and teenagers. Both books are slated to come out in late spring 2022.
Adolescence is a great time to learn about the power of gratitude, practice thankfulness, and to appreciate the blessings in your life, including your friends and family. These are skills that preteens and teenagers need to develop as part of social and emotional learning.
Scientific research has proven that being thankful improves your health, your cognitive functions, and your relationships. Young people who see the silver linings, count their blessings, and maintain a positive perspective weather the ups and downs of life much better than those who bemoan their fates and focus on the negative.
We’re looking for your uplifting true stories and poems about how you used the power of gratitude to change your own life while you navigated the preteen and teenage years. You’ll help readers through your examples and your personal tips on how to use thankfulness and appreciation.
Here are some suggested topics but we know you can think of many more:
• Learning that less can be more
• Developing the right attitude toward technology, clothing, cars, and other things that kids want
• Realizing that possessions are not as important as other things, like relationships and family
• Adopting a healthier attitude towards money
• Appreciating the elderly family members in your life
• Doing for others – volunteer work, random acts of kindness
• Doing your very best and making an effort—because you only have one life
• Maintaining a positive attitude even when times are tough
• Appreciating your family members
• Appreciating your mentors, such as teachers and coaches
• Doing the right thing – even when it’s the hard thing
• Learning to be grateful and how to express gratitude
• Counting your blessings and deliberately being thankful
• Things that worked, such as gratitude journals
• Doing a good deed every day
• Learning to smile no matter how you feel and the difference it makes
• Looking for silver linings
• Pausing to take notice… and acknowledging what you have
• Simplifying, and finding joy in that
• How gratitude changed your life
• Finding joy in family and friends
• Throwing away your negative attitude
• Using positive thinking
• Finding at least one thing each day to be grateful for
• Passing your attitude of gratitude on to family and friends – it’s contagious!
* Crazy, Eccentric, Wacky, Lovable, Fun Families
The deadline for submissions is APRIL 30, 2022.
We all have them! Those eccentric, goofy, wacky, lovable, and oh so fun family members—the ones we tell all the stories about. They could be a parent or grandparent, an in-law, a brother or sister, an aunt, uncle or cousin. Or grown children.
Share your true stories and poems about those family members. With love and appreciation, please. No mean- spirited stories wanted. And don’t worry. You can put a pen name on your story if necessary.
Here are some suggested topics, but we know you will have many more ideas:
• Faux pas, misunderstandings, gaffes of all kinds
• Eccentric to a fault
• Family feuds
• Family traditions that need to end… now!
• Weddings, funerals, and other family events
• Birthdays and gift-giving
• Meeting the family
• Silly family fun
• Childhood hijinks
• Holiday hysterics
• Kooky compulsions and obsessions
• Estate issues – that’s mine and you can’t have it!
• Moving back in with your parents
• Having your children move back in
• Vacationing together
• Marriage! Need we say more?
• Blended families
• Outlandish, amusing and annoying habits
* Thanksgiving, Christmas, Hanukkah and New Year's
The deadline for submissions is MAY 30, 2022.
Everyone loves holiday stories and our contributors write great ones. They are so good that we create a new edition for the holiday season every year. We are now collecting stories for our HOLIDAY 2022 book and we are looking for stories about the entire December holiday season, including Thanksgiving, Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Boxing Day, and New Year’s festivities too.
We want to hear about your holiday memories and traditions. The rituals of the holiday season give a rhythm to the years and create a foundation for our lives, as we gather with family, with our communities at church, at school, and even at the mall, to share the special spirit of the season, brightening those long winter days. Please share your special stories about the holiday season with us. Be sure that they are “Santa safe” so that we don’t spoil the magic for precocious readers!
Here are some suggested topics, but we know you can think of many more:
• The True Meaning of the Holidays
• Holiday Traditions
• Memories of the Holiday Season
• The Love of Family
• Family Reunions
• Holiday Humor
• Gift Giving
• Gift Receiving
• Regifting
• Decorating
• Eat, Eat, Eat... and Be Merry
• Christmas Through the Eyes of a Child
• Christmas Through the Eyes of Your Pets!
• Here Comes Santa Claus
• Things that went wrong!
• Holiday food and traditions
• The weird things your family does
• Funny anecdotes
If your story was published in a previous Chicken Soup for the Soul holiday book please do not submit it again. But if you previously submitted a story and it was not published and it will fit in this book, please do submit it again.
Hooked on Hockey
If you love hockey, if you play hockey, if you are a hockey fan, we are looking for stories from you! We are looking for stories for this book written by and for hockey fans and families. The book will include stories from everyday hockey players and fans like you, as well as revealing personal stories from some of your favorite NHLers and hockey insiders. The deadline for story and poems submissions is January 30, 2012.
