I received a question last month from a subscriber who had been getting pushback from a Christian bookstore and church library on stocking Chicken Soup for the Soul books.

She said, “I know Chicken Soup is not overtly a Christian publication. I am very thankful to Chicken Soup for their support of my writing as well as a lot of other Christian writers.

I told her, “My take on it has always been that CS is a general market series. They don’t claim to be Christian, but they allow authors to talk about their faith as long as it’s integral to the story. To me, that’s a golden opportunity to reach readers we’d never reach otherwise.”

“In my workshops, I say, ‘Someone who wouldn’t pick up a devotional book might pick up a Chicken Soup for the Soul book and read your story of God’s faithfulness.’ Not that every story has to have an obvious Christian theme, but I’d like to see the Christian community flood their books with stories that demonstrate God’s attributes.”

The subscriber also went on to say that her local food bank bought 100 copies of the latest Chicken Soup for the Soul Christmas book to sell as a fundraiser. That sounds like a win to me.