Friday, July 18, 2008

Chicken Soup for the Soul: Power Moms - Story Call

I had this in an e-mail sent to myself to look at later (does anyone else do that?). I don't know where I ran across this submission call, but here it is to share with you:

Chicken Soup for the Soul: Power Moms
101 Stories Celebrating the Power of Choice for Stay at Home and Work from Home Moms

Raising children, managing homes, and maybe even keeping a hand in the working world can place incredible demands on mothers. These multi-tasking, high-performing women have become today’s power moms.

Moms – share your stories about being a mom and doing it all. Dads – share your feelings about your stay at home wife. And children of moms who stayed at home – tell us about your mom. Stories should be written in the first person and should not exceed 1200 words.

Any stories are welcomed, including those on the following topics:

• Celebrating the choice to be at home: Share your most treasured moments
• Making the choice to stay home or scale back work to raise kids
• Managing the new demands of raising healthy, accomplished and well-balanced children
• Meeting the challenges of running a household in an increasingly busy world
• Clever ways of multi-tasking: getting it all done every day
• Dad at work, Mom at home: Surviving the division of labor in your marriage
• Facing Baby Brain Drain: Making quality time for yourself
• Reclaiming the joys of work through charity and community service
• Creative ways to work from home
• Mompreneurs: Making your own family-friendly job
• Reinventing yourself when the kids are all in school
• The power of female friendship: How women rely on each other to get through the day
• The buck stops with you: Feeling the pressure of being everyone’s go-to person
• Life in the minivan: Making the most of the driving black hole
• Giving up the Guilt: When doing it all is impossible

If your story is chosen, you will be a published author and your bio will be printed in the book. You will also receive a check for $200 and ten free copies of the book, worth more than $100. Your story will be copyrighted in your name and you will retain your rights to resell the story to another publication after it is published by Chicken Soup.

DEADLINE IS SEPTEMBER 1, 2008. SUBMISSIONS GO HERE.

Submissions to our web site receive faster attention and are more likely to be published, but if you do not have Internet access, please submit your story by mail or by facsimile.
Chicken Soup for the Soul
P.O. Box 700
Cos Cob, CT 06807-0700
Fax 203-861-7194

If you have a piece published, please consider letting me know. Hey, I'd gladly even accept one of those free books.

So, get writing. Ask St. Francis de Sales and St. Lucy, the patron saints of writing/authors, to pray for you and get to it- no excuses!

4 comments:

Kim said...

Is it really true that St. Lucy is one of the patron saints of writers/authors? Where did you learn that? I chose Lucy for my confirmation name last year (for various reasons), but I had no idea about that....it gives me goosebumps, because for ages I've been writing (I'm writing a book even now). Weird!

~~~mary said...

Kimberly -
That really is the case. I found out about it by googling for the info. If you search images you'll often see a feather in her hand. I never knew why - now I'm guessing it is her writing quill. What a great confirmation name for an author! I'm guessing that your guardian angel might have been in on the decision.
You might want to know that the patronage that I previously associated with her, and is also true, is eyesight.
Here is a fine article on her: http://www.catholicculture.org/liturgicalyear/calendar/day.cfm?date=2007-12-13
If you have never heard of the Swedish traditions, be sure to check out that portion. Evidently, families in this country have fun with with them too. Only having one child, and a boy at that, they don't work for us. Peace. ~~~mary

Kim said...

Thanks for the info, Mary. Actually, the Swedish traditions are how I became acquainted with Lucy in the first place---there are a couple of posts about it at my blog, if you feel like digging back to my December posts. Now that I know Lucy is one of the patron saints of writers, I feel like my connection to her is even bigger than I originally thought.

BTW, just wanted to say that I really enjoy your blog. I don't always have time to really read cover-to-cover every issue of Our Sunday Visitor that I receive, but I glean lots of good tidbits about what's going on in the Catholic world by coming here!

God bless!

~~~mary said...

Kimberly-
That is so sweet of you. Thanks! Peace. ~~~mary