***SELECT YOUR TOPIC***

Cat Stories

The deadline for submissions is JUNE 30,2024.

Our readers love our cat titles. They are so very popular, and you have so many great stories to share with us, that we do a new cat title every eighteen months or so. Chicken Soup for the Soul: Me and My Cat has been completed and will be released in April 2024. But here is another chance for you to share a story or two about the member of your family who just happens to walk on four feet! This book will be published in 2025.

Our cats enrich our lives so much and in so many ways. What would we do without them? We are looking for first-person true stories and poems up to 1200 words that highlight the unique personalities that cats have. Celebrate your cat, or a cat you know, with a wonderful story about what he or she does. Stories can be serious or humorous, or both. We can't wait to read all the heartwarming, inspirational, and magical stories that celebrate the cat and the magic that cats brings to your life or the lives of your family or friends!

***Please note: If you submitted a story or poem for a previous cat book and we DID NOT publish it, here is your chance to submit it to us again. If you submitted a story and we DID publish it in a previous cat book, please do not submit it. We will not publish it again.

Here are some ideas to start you out:

- My cat warms my heart and makes me smile
- My cat seems to be able to read my mind at times
- My cat improves my life
- My cat can almost talk... and I understand
- My cat makes me laugh
- My cat shows me unconditional love
- My cat can forgive and forget
- My cat shows empathy and an understanding of many situations
- My cat thinks he is human
- My cat has expectations that she assumes, as her human, I will follow up on
- My cat has some peculiar habits
- My cat loves the holidays, sleeping in the sun, riding in the car, having a bath, loud noises, my significant other. etc.
-My cat hates the holidays, sleeping in the sun, riding in the car, having a bath, loud noises, my significant other, etc.
... any other things you can think of

Christmas, Thanksgiving, Hanukkah, New Year's

The deadline for submissions is APRIL 30, 2024.

Everyone loves the holidays and making cherished memories. Our holiday titles make wonderful gifts and are so popular that we create a new edition each year. We are now collecting stories for our 2024 HOLIDAY edition that will be published later this year.

How do you celebrate the holidays? Are your celebrations very traditional or are they very spontaneous and never the same? We want to hear how you celebrate your holidays. How do you gather with family and friends to share the special spirit of the season? How do you brighten those long winter days?

Please submit your true stories and poems about the entire December holiday season, including Thanksgiving, Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Boxing Day, and New Year's festivities too. **If your stories are about celebrating Christmas please be sure that they are "Santa safe" so that we don't spoil the magic for precocious readers!

***Please note: If you submitted a story or poem for a previous holiday book and we DID NOT publish it, here is your chance to submit it to us again. If you submitted a story and we DID publish it in a previous holiday book, please do not submit it again. We will not publish it again.

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

- What celebrating the holidays means to me
- Holiday traditions
- Memories of the holiday season
- The love of family
- Family reunions
- Holiday humor
- Gift giving
- Gift receiving
- Regifting - oh no!
- Decorating... oh how we love to do that!
- Un-decorating... oh how we hate to do that!
- Eat, Eat, Eat... and be merry
- Christmas through the eyes of a child
- Elf on the Shelf fun and games
- Here comes Santa Claus
- Secret Santa fun
- Things that went wrong!
- Holiday food and traditions
- Neighborhood competition for house decorations
- The spontaneous things your family has done
- Funny anecdotes

Dog Stories

The deadline for submissions is JUNE 30, 2024.

Our 2024 dog book title, Chicken Soup for the Soul: Me And My Dog, will go on sale in February and we are thrilled to announce that we are now accepting stories for our 2025 edition. Our readers love our dog titles and they are so very popular. You have so many great stories to share with us that we do a new dog title every eighteen months or so and here is another chance for you to share a story or two about the member of your family who just happens to walk on four feet!

Our dogs enrich our lives so much and in so many ways. What would we do without them? We are looking for first-person true stories and poems up to 1200 words that highlight the unique personalities that dogs have. Celebrate your dog, or a dog you know, with a wonderful story about what he or she does. Stories can be serious or humorous, or both. We can't wait to read all the heartwarming, inspirational, and magical stories that celebrate the dog and the magic that dogs bring to your life or the lives of your family or friends!

***Please note: If you submitted at story or poem for a previous dog book and we DID NOT publish it, here is your chance to submit it to us again. If you submitted a story and we DID publish it in a previous dog book, please do not submit it. We will not publish it again.

Here are some suggested topics:

- Who rescued who?
- Who trained who?
- Do you sometimes think your dog is human?
- Insights from your dog
- Empathy from your dog
- Compassion from your dog
- How my dog picked me
- My dog can almost talk
- My therapy dog
- My dog makes me laugh
- My dog understands
- How my dog changed my family
- How my dog changed my life
- My dog's interaction with other animals
- From puppies to senior dogs, milestones, end of life
- Your work at a shelter or rescue organization
- Children and dogs
- Your dog and holidays

Funny stories

The deadline for submissions is APRIL 30, 2024.

Laughter is the best medicine. And we love to publish your funny stories in all our books. Our books filled with nothing but funny stories are always bestsellers, so we are doing it again. This edition will be for publication in 2024 but we're already looking for those funny stories you tell again and again. The ones that make everyone laugh.

We are looking for stories about something that happened to you in your life - in your relationship with a partner or spouse, a parent or child, a family member or friend, at work or at home that made you and the people around you laugh out loud. Did you mean for it to be funny? Did the other person mean to make you laugh? Did a situation just get out of control? Did a misunderstanding turn into a comedy of errors? We can't wait to hear your true stories. We want them to be silly, outrageous and hilarious, and they absolutely must make us laugh!

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

- A slip of the tongue - Oh no, I didn't mean to say that!
- Mistaken identity
- Obsessions and Compulsions
- Work whoops
- Pranks that worked - Gotcha!
- Pranks that backfired - Yikes!
- Annoying habits - if you don't stop doing that I'm going to scream!
- Doggone funny
- Getting catty
- That was embarrassing
- Happily ever laughter
- Innocently inappropriate
- What? I thought you said but you really said!
- Senior moments
- Wedding woes
- Funeral foul-ups
- Holiday hiccups and meltdowns
- Kitchen/dinner party accidents
- Sports catastrophes
- Domestic turmoil
- Dating disasters
- Making fun of yourself
- Crazy family fun and foibles: it's all relative
- Moving-day mayhem
- Laughing at inappropriate times
- I can't believe I did that!
- Travel turmoil
- Zany vacations

Grandmothers

The deadline for story submissions is JUNE 30, 2024.

We view this book as a wonderful gift for grandmothers of all ages at any time of year, but it will be published in March 2025, in time for the Mother's Day selling season. That is the reason for the short deadline. We may extend the deadline but please do not count on that. Please get your submissions in early so we can get started reading and choosing right away!

What makes this topic so much fun? Well, the moment a grandchild is born, a grandmother is born too. And what an amazing experience it is. Everyone has a great story about the unconditional love between grandmothers and their grandchildren. We are looking for heartwarming, insightful, and humorous stories celebrating grandmothers.

Stories can be written by:

- Grandmothers about being a grandmother
- Grandchildren about their grandmothers
- Adult children about their mothers or stepmothers or mothers-in-law as grandmothers

All of the above equally applies to stepmothers as grandmothers. We are not differentiating.

Poems are only considered if they are "prose poems" that tell a story. Please, no poems that obsessively rhyme and seem like a greeting card. Also, please, no eulogies.

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

- My baby is having a baby!
- The joys of becoming a grandmother
- Getting your grandmother name
- Love across the generations
- Continuing family legacies and traditions
- Spoiling my grandchildren
- The wisdom of grandmothers
- What I learned from my grandchildren
- What I learned from my grandmother
- What I learned from my grown child when he/she became a parent
- The rewards of being a grandmother
- The challenges of being a grandmother
- Fun times
- Funny stories
- Babysitting
- Using technology for being part of grandchildren's/grandmothers' lives such as FaceTime and Zoom, social media, texting
- Keeping up with the grandchildren: adventures, sore muscles, exhaustion...
- Co-grandparenting with the in-laws, with your husband
- Disagreements with the parents over rules, nutrition, religion, etc.- including unwanted advice!
- Traveling with grandmothers/grandchildren
- Grandmothers as role models
- Raising your grandchildren when the parents are unable to
- Differences between grandsons and granddaughters
- Creating new traditions with the grandchildren/grandmothers

The power of thinking positive

The deadline for submission is MARCH 20, 2024.

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 thinking

Thank you!