© 2020 Tracy Crump

Chicken Soup for the Soul callouts have been the bedrock of our newsletter since we began in 2008. I can’t thank Amy Newmark, author, editor-in-chief, and publisher of the Chicken Soup for the Soul series, enough for connecting with me recently and answering questions about what she looks for in their stories. Talking with her was like sitting across the table from a cherished friend—just as she described the process of writing a story in last month’s article (see The Write Life May 2020).

Here is the rest of our interview.

Q:What do you not want to see in a story?

A: Don’t overtly tell us what we’re supposed to learn from your story. Avoid philosophizing. [As we talked about last month], it’s not an essay. If you’re writing about “the magic of dogs,” don’t include a “professor paragraph” about how dogs help people. You’re sharing the book with a hundred other writers who all have something to share about dogs. Just tell what you learned from your own experience. Let me draw my own conclusions.

Also, we don’t want stories that are narcissistic. I think of a long-standing magazine whose stories have a general feeling of misery. We want stories with a positive ending and lesson. It can be sad for 90 percent of the time, but it needs to end on a positive note. No woe-is-me stories.

Q: What is the most common reason a story is rejected?

A: It will be rejected if it’s an essay, not an actual story, or if it’s all over the place, no discipline. We also see a lot of eulogies. If you had an eccentric grandma, don’t tell about the seventeen crazy things she did. Tell about one and focus on that. Remember, it’s oral storytelling on a page, like you’re telling your story to a person. Think of it as a portable support group for the reader.

Q: And here’s one for the procrastinators (lol)—If the deadline is at midnight on a certain day, what time zone are we talking about?

A: I’m a procrastinator myself, so we try to give everyone a chance. Think Hawaii. The staff member who shuts down the story acceptances lives in California, and she usually does it first thing in the morning of the day after the deadline, so it gives a little wiggle room, especially for those on the East Coast. But don’t submit up to the deadline. We start reading one month, sometimes several months, earlier. If we’ve read three stories about the same topic, we may be bored by the time we get to yours or have already found a good story to use. However, it’s better to submit late than not at all!

Also, we’re constantly posting topics, and we don’t always send callouts right away, so check the website frequently [under Books—Submit Your Story—Possible Book Topics]. Sometimes we’re just testing a topic for interest and may move stories under another topic.

Special Offer from Amy:
If people want to get the callouts directly from us, they can write our webmaster and ask to be put on the list. We normally only send those to writers previously published with us. You still have to be one of our authors to get the monthly Communique.

NOTE: The Write Life subscribers get Chicken Soup for the Soul callouts plus callouts for other anthologies! Click here to subscribe.
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Amy Newmark is the author, editor-in-chief, and publisher of the Chicken Soup for the Soul book series. Since 2008, she has published more than 160 new books, most of them national bestsellers in the US and Canada. Amy is credited with revitalizing the Chicken Soup for the Soul brand, which has been a publishing industry phenomenon since the first book came out in 1993. Follow Amy on Twitter @amynewmark. Listen to her free podcast, The Chicken Soup for the Soul Podcast.