Pat, Debbie and Sharon met Amy Newark today in Granada Hills, owner of Chicken Soup for the Soul. They feasted on delicious food (brownies and cheesecake for dessert) and enjoyed meeting other contributors. (scroll down for pictures)

There were about 100 writers present. We took a group picture which will probably appear in their next newsletter. Most of the time was spent socializing, but Amy did speak for about 30 minutes on how she acquired “Chicken Soup”...where they have been, where they are going. She has four grown children, and is happily married.

We had a question/answer time. And only 2 questions were brought up.
The first one by Sharon. “If we have a really good topic for a book, who do we give that to?”

Amy explained they do not accept topics for books from non-staff people. They don’t want to get into lawsuits that could spring up if someone said, “Hey that was my idea—I want to be paid!”

Second question was about how one knows if their story was accepted or not.

Answer: If you have not heard from them 6 weeks before the book is due out, then your story did not make it.
You can find out when the books are coming out on their website.

Amy mentioned they have about 5000 stories submitted per book.