Chicken Soup for the Soul: Publishing Everyday Stories

My parents precocious moved crossed Canada to Vancouver, which is wherever I’ve been surviving for the past six years. With them came a container afloat of my puerility study cards, letters, cards, graduation certificates, and swimming badges. Reading these was similar attending a reunion with my puerility self, and among those momentos I came crossed the acceptance missive and declaration from erstwhile I was published successful Chicken Soup for the Teenage Soul 2. I was 13 erstwhile I submitted my communicative to them and 15 by the clip it was published, and the acceptance missive was decidedly the astir breathtaking message I’d ever received. I’d fundamentally beryllium famous, my sanction listed alongside celebs similar Jennifer Love Hewitt and Andrew Keegan — it was 1998, clearly.

I’d discovered the archetypal Chicken Soup for the Teenage Soul successful a Boca Raton Target, and speechmaking the plethora of teen-penned stories felt similar the archetypal clip radical were penning astir relatable experiences. Not lone that, but erstwhile I discovered they were looking for stories for a 2nd book, it felt attainable. I’d been penning abbreviated stories and poems for years and this publication was filled with stories that excavation could blend successful with.

And truthful I wrote a semi-autobiographical, banter-filled instrumentality connected a teen’s unrequited crush, Buffy references and self-deprecation abounded. I didn’t recognize that the stories were meant to beryllium wholly existent and, frankly, excavation was not. It was an imaginary speech betwixt imaginary radical but based connected existent radical and thoughts. And yet, arsenic I received emails from teens who had work and related to my story, I realized with daze that teens were speechmaking this publication successful droves. Teens from each implicit the world, of varying ages and experiences, each yearning to spot themselves successful the pages of a book.

Unless, of course, you were looking for an LGBTQ+ communicative focused Chicken Soup, which inactive doesn’t beryllium 29 years on. The marque website’s About Us transcript makes definite to springiness LGBTQ+ readers immoderate hope, penning “[t]he members of our squad are diverse, representing galore ethnicities, religions, nationalities, and the LGBTQ community. We proceed to question adjacent much diverseness successful our squad members and our storytelling arsenic we further our ngo of ‘changing the satellite 1 communicative astatine a time®.’”

Hmm.

Their caller publications seemingly person a spiritual bent; 2022 gave america Miracles and the Unexplainable, Believe successful Angels, The Magic of Christmas, and Devotional Stories for Mothers and Grandmothers. It’s a full mood, though existent Editor-in-Chief Amy Newmark has denied that Chicken Soup has immoderate specified spiritual agenda. Newmark addressed this successful a Vice nonfiction by Diana Tourjée, saying “We don’t cognize however we ever got the estimation for being a Christian publishing company, arsenic we person ne'er been that.”

In 2014, Katy Waldman wrote an fantabulous captious analysis, summing up Chicken Soup’s Newmark-era contented displacement with a wry but apt description: “Originally an all-purpose premix of amusement and inspiration, the franchise has reinvented itself successful portion arsenic a root of celestially-bathed lifehacks.”

The marque doesn’t conscionable enactment retired books anymore. The institution has produced a podcast, a socio-emotional learning curriculum, children’s books, a video-on-demand web called Chicken Soup for the Soul Entertainment, pasta sauces, puzzles, and, past but astir surely not least, a enactment of favored nutrient products. So however did this multi-product empire archetypal travel to be?

Origin story

Canfield and Hansen were palmy motivational speakers earlier they began moving connected their archetypal Chicken Soup for the Soul. According to Cynthia Gorney’s past of the franchise, written for The New Yorker successful 2003, Canfield was the archetypal creator. His aboriginal vocation included teaching precocious school, co-founding a humanistic-psychology halfway successful Massachusetts, co-writing a children’s self-esteem workbook, and founding Self-Esteem Seminars, wherever helium told short, inspirational stories aimed astatine bolstering people’s confidence.

In 1992, helium enlisted Hansen arsenic co-editor, with the program to compile a publication made up of the sorts of motivational stories Canfield had go celebrated for telling. They enactment unneurotic a section and recovered an agent, Jeffrey Herman, but Herman struggled to get a greenish light. Publisher Ron Fry related to Gorney that helium recovered the archetypal section to beryllium “[k]ind of treacly.” On apical of its unproven potential, Hansen and Canfield wanted a $1500 beforehand for it.

Canfield and Hansen would not beryllium deterred. Gorney explains that the co-authors wanted to scope radical who didn’t place arsenic publication readers and who mightiness not purposefully locomotion into bookshops to browse. Their tiny team, besides consisting of Patty Aubery, whose occupation was arsenic benignant of a jack-of-all-trades-meets-office-admin. Gas stations, nail salons, flea markets, PTA meetings, self-help seminars…the co-authors and Aubery hustled to get the books into the hands of the public. And it worked.

At the backmost of the book, the co-authors invited their readers to lend to the adjacent measurement by suggesting they “[s]hare your bosom with the remainder of the world.” As Gorney points out, the information that the books took stories from readers was different gully for the nationalist astatine large. Gorney writes, “As it happens, precise fewer places beryllium these days successful which an mean idiosyncratic without a literate cause mightiness anticipation to stock her bosom with the remainder of the world. There are a fewer magazines that people first-person accounts, and determination is of people the internet, which was inactive connected grooming wheels erstwhile the archetypal Chicken book came out.”

That was portion of what drove maine to submit, though it was little sharing my bosom and much sharing my words. I’d fancied myself a writer since I was 8 oregon 9, and erstwhile I spotted the invitation to taxable astatine the backmost of the book, it felt similar this was my moment. Some of the stories were much affectional than skillful successful their narratives; if they could beryllium published, past I had a chance. I’d ideate galore burgeoning writers felt the same.

In 2008, Canfield and Hansen sold Chicken Soup to a caller ownership group, 1 managed by Bill Rouhana and Bob Jacobs. That is erstwhile Newmark, Rouhana’s wife, archetypal came into the picture. Between 2008-2014, Newmark, Canfield, and Hansen began co-editing the books together; eventually, Newmark would edit connected her ain oregon with impermanent co-editors. Rouhana and Jacobs wanted to bolster the popularity of the books portion besides branching retired into licensing products successful adjacent fields — favored nutrient for each the carnal lovers speechmaking their books, for instance. In an interrogation with Forbes successful 2011, Rouhana and Jacobs extolled that the Chicken Soup brand stood for “hope, faith. and trust.” You tin spot that branding successful the books’ existent iteration arsenic overseen by Newmark; faith, hope, and spot could virtually beryllium the subtitle of galore of their much caller collections.

SHARING IS CARING

By the time Chicken Soup for Teenage Soul 2 was published, I was 15. Raised connected the self-deprecation and skepticism of sitcom humour and Buffy, speechmaking saccharine stories astir teenagers problems had go acold little appealing.

I received my escaped transcript and, delighted to beryllium published and paid, cracked unfastened its hardcover spine and began to work my story, titled “Unrequired Love.” With increasing annoyance, I noted the editor’s prime of opening my communicative with a Charlie Brown punctuation and altering its last line. I didn’t truly admit the characters successful the publication anymore either; a batch had changed for maine betwixt 13 and 15. Then, erstwhile done, I closed the publication and laughed, ohio however I laughed, earlier getting up and sliding the transcript onto my bookshelf. Nestled amongst publication faves similar Please Kill Me: An Oral History of Punk Rock and The Picture of Dorian Gray, I did not unfastened Teenage Soul 2’s pages again for galore years.

While I haven’t work immoderate different books successful the franchise since and don’t ever program to, it doesn’t mean I deliberation they are without merit. Yes, Chicken Soup can beryllium preachy and cheesy, but it did normalize the signifier of publishing stories by mundane radical — adjacent giving a dependable to galore who felt their stories mightiness not different look worthy listening to.

Teenage Soul 2’s stories didn’t bolster my self-esteem, but being published made a difference. That’s 1 happening I’d genuinely compliment astir the franchise: its willingness to perceive to its readers’ wants. As Waldman explains of the books’ appeal, their can-do cognition and uplifting platitudes volition capable immoderate readers with a consciousness of healing and anticipation that is capable to conflict adjacent the wryest cynicism. Towards the extremity of her article, Waldman writes, “‘Chicken Soup is the worst,’ I told my roommate, flinging down the book. What I didn’t accidental was that I’d been speechmaking for an hr and I’d already cried 3 times.”

Maybe that’s what Canfield and Hensen truly figured retired with the look — determination are a batch of radical retired determination who conscionable privation to person a cathartic outcry portion speechmaking a publication that seems to astir actively attraction astir their interests, happiness, and self-improvement.

Weird angel fixation oregon not, person astatine it, I guess.