PN – Call for Submissions to Chicken Soup for the Soul Series. Theme: The Power of Positive Thinking

We know that using the power of thinking positive helps you to achieve your goals and lead a happy, purposeful, and productive life. Almost anything is possible if you think you can. You can dream big, overcome challenges, create the best life possible for yourself, and turn adversity into opportunity.

What do you do to think positive and how did it change your life? Tell us your success story about using the power of thinking positive!

Here are some suggested topics but we know you can think of many more:

How your attitude has made a difference in your life
Have you used the fake it till you make it strategy?
The unexpected benefits of challenges
Putting things in perspective
Turning negative thoughts into positive thoughts
Counting your blessings
Using humor to improve your life
Silver linings that you have discovered
Appreciating the simple pleasures
What changes you made to create the best possible life for yourself and for your family
How gratitude helped you achieve your goals
How you used the power of forgiveness
How you pursued your passion
How you found purpose in your life
Ways you can actively practice using positive thinking to improve your life
Tell us about a role model who showed you how to use positive thinking
Using forgiveness to put the past in the past and find your way forward
Powering through health challenges through positive thinking
The best advice/wise words that helped you use positive think.

Guidelines for a Chicken Soup for the Soul story

1. Tell an exciting, heartwarming or funny story about something that has happened to you or someone you know. Your story should be written in the first person and should be about yourself or someone close to you.
2. Tell your story in a way that will make the reader cry, laugh, get goose bumps or say “Wow!”
3. The story should start “in the action” and draw in the reader. Do not start your story with an introduction about what you are going to say, or end with a concluding paragraph about what you just said.
4. Don’t be afraid to speak from the heart. Many people tell personal stories for the first time in our books, and they find it to be a cathartic and productive experience. We do let you use a pen name for your story if you do not want to use your real name.
5. Don’t try fancy moves with tenses. Writing in the present tense about something that happened in the past rarely works.
6. Keep your story to 1200 words or less. Tighten, tighten, tighten!
7. Your story must be true. No fiction, no creative writing.

What a Chicken Soup for the Soul story IS NOT:

1. A sermon, an essay or eulogy.
2. An “as told to” story written by you for someone else. If you ghost-write a story for someone, we thank you for helping that person share his or her story. That person’s name will be listed as the author and he or she can acknowledge your help in the bio section.
3. A term paper, thesis, letter or journal entry.
4. About politics or controversial issues.
5. A biography or testimonial.
6. A journalistic article about a third party that reads like a newspaper article.

Guidelines for a Chicken Soup for the Soul poem

1. We love poems that tell a story. A Chicken Soup for the Soul poem does the same job as a story. The reader goes away having learned your story, just through poetry instead of prose.
2. We do not publish poems that do not tell a story.
3. We also do not publish poems that seem overly focused on rhyming and read more like greeting cards.

A few more tips about submitting

1. The only way to submit your stories or poems to us is via our website. If you have any problems when trying to fill out the form and submit your work, please contact our webmaster at: webmaster@chickensoupforthesoul.com. Responses from the webmaster usually take several days, so be patient.
2. Our webmaster cannot help you with your personal computer problems. If you have questions, such as, “How do I paste my story into the submission form?” please ask a friend or relative, not our webmaster.
3. Please submit only stories or poems that have not been previously published. The only exception to this is if your work has only been published in a small local publication with limited circulation or on your own blog.
4. Please do not send us any book manuscripts, unless through a literary agent, as these will be automatically discarded. Also, we do not accept title ideas from the public. If we receive any, they will be discarded and will not be shown to an editor.