AN EXCLUSIVE MONTHLY COMMUNIQUÉ FOR OUR WRITERS I NNER C IRCLE the INSPIRATION for riters W Hey Canada, soup’s on! That’s right — our new book, Chicken Soup for the Soul: O Canada came out on November 1st. We had large pre-orders in Canada, and plenty of orders in the U.S. too, for all those Canadians who live here full-time or winter in Florida. Canadians are very good writers! We found that the submissions were excellent and didn’t require much editing. It was hard to pick only 101, but we made some tough choices and we covered all the topics near and dear to Canadians, including hockey, bad weather, cottages, Canadian holidays, and Canadian national pride. Since our Chicken Soup for the Soul editors are all Americans, although with some Canadian blood thrown in here and there, we put together a board of advisers composed of some of our regular Canadian contributors, including Harriet Cooper, Pamela Goldstein, David Martin, Terrie Todd, and the co-author of Chicken Soup for the Soul: Count Your Blessings, Laura Robinson. Our advisers read and graded 126 finalist stories and the 101 winners are in the book. Laura also introduced us to her friend Amy Sky, the wonderful Canadian singer and songwriter, pictured here. Amy wrote the foreword for our book as well as a story about returning to Canada after pursuing her music career in the U.S. Amy’s husband Marc Jordan, another well-known performer, also wrote a story for the book, as did hockey star Matt Duchene, storm chaser George Kourounis, and of course, Laura Robinson, who also returned to Canada after spending many years as a successful actress in LA. Laura also introduced us to the famous classical guitarist Liona Boyd, whose new album is coming out in early 2012, with songs she has written about her return to Canada from the U.S. We feature the lyrics to half a dozen of those songs in Chicken Soup for the Soul: O Canada, so Liona’s fans will get a preview of her new work! We hope all our Canadian readers will love the book as much as we enjoyed making it. Our whole publishing staff wants to go on vacation to Canada now after reading all the great stories. See you at Tim Hortons! Your publisher, Amy Newmark N O V E M B E R 2 0 1 1 ~Anton Checkhov Don’t tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass. Amy Sky A Note from Your Publisher
Transcript
A N E X C L U S I V E M O N T H L Y C O M M U N I Q U É F O R O U R W R I T E R S
INNER CIRCLEthe
INSPIRATION for
ritersW
Hey Canada, soup’s on! That’s right — our new book, Chicken Soup for the Soul: O Canada came out on November 1st. We had large pre-orders in Canada, and plenty of orders in the U.S. too, for all those Canadians who live here full-time or winter in Florida.
Canadians are very good writers! We found that the submissions were excellent and didn’t require much editing. It was hard to pick only 101, but we made some tough choices and we covered all the topics near and dear to Canadians, including hockey, bad weather, cottages, Canadian holidays, and Canadian national pride.
Since our Chicken Soup for the Soul editors are all Americans, although with some Canadian blood thrown in here and there, we put together a board of advisers composed of some of our regular Canadian contributors, including Harriet Cooper, Pamela Goldstein, David Martin, Terrie Todd, and the co-author of Chicken Soup for the Soul: Count Your Blessings, Laura Robinson. Our advisers read and graded 126 finalist stories and the 101 winners are in the book.
Laura also introduced us to her friend Amy Sky, the wonderful Canadian singer and songwriter, pictured here. Amy wrote the foreword for our book as well as a story about returning to Canada after pursuing her music career in the U.S. Amy’s husband Marc Jordan, another well-known performer, also wrote a story for the book, as did hockey star Matt Duchene, storm chaser George Kourounis, and of course, Laura Robinson, who also returned to Canada after spending many years as a successful actress in LA.
Laura also introduced us to the famous classical guitarist Liona Boyd, whose new album is coming out in early 2012, with songs she has written about her return to Canada from the U.S. We feature the lyrics to half a dozen of those songs in Chicken Soup for the Soul: O Canada, so Liona’s fans will get a preview of her new work!
We hope all our Canadian readers will love the book as much as we enjoyed making it. Our whole publishing staff wants to go on vacation to Canada now after reading all the great stories. See you at Tim Hortons!
Your publisher, Amy Newmark
N O V E M B E R 2 0 1 1
~Anton Checkhov
Don’t tell me the moon is shining;
show me the glint of light on broken glass.
Amy Sky
A Note from Your Publisher
Changing the world, one story at a time®
How would you read the sentence aloud? If you briefly pause between the two clauses but you want them to feel more connected than they would with a period between them, a semicolon is appropriate.Hummingbirds are beautiful creatures; they can flap their wings up to ninety times per second.The two parts of the sentence could stand alone, but the semicolon connects them for the sake of clarity.
Could you use a conjunction instead? Semicolons are never used when you already have a conjunction (and, but, yet, or, etc.)Wrong: I love birds; but the hummingbird is my favorite.Right: I love birds; the hummingbird is my favorite.
Can you make your list easier to read? Most of the time, commas are best for making a list of items. However, a semicolon can help if the items you’re listing already have commas.Without a semicolon: If you also love hummingbirds, you can find them in Arizona, Costa Rica, and Ecuador.With a semicolon: If you also love hummingbirds, you can find them in Tucson, Arizona; Monteverde, Costa Rica; and Pichincha, Ecuador.
Editor’s Tips
Do you know the proper way to use a
semicolon?
Semicolons are helpful when used correctly because they
can connect two independent clauses that are related to
each other. When deciding whether or not your sentence needs a semicolon, consider
these rules and tips:
Chicken Soup for the Soul: Answered Prayers contributor Bill Garvey sent us these pictures of “America’s Pumpkin,” the giant 500-pounder he drove to New York City one month after the attacks on September 11th.
In Bill’s story, called “The Pumpkin Man,” he describes how he grew one last giant pumpkin, carved it with patriotic scenes, and drove it to New York City from Michigan — an eleven-hour drive.
Chicken Soup for the Soul: Answered Prayers went on sale October 18th, 2011, a little more than one month after the tenth anniversary of the attacks. Bill sent an e-mail to his friends, with these pictures, to announce the publication. Ten years after the devastating events of September 11th, Bill’s story of kindness and caring is now published for all to read.
The Pumpkin
Man... Ten Years
Later
Contributor Linda Wright held a successful book signing on Saturday, October 1st at Barnes & Noble in Melbourne, Florida. A Tampa Bay Rays fan whose story, “Batter Up,” was about baseball, she was impressed to find that fellow baseball fans came out to the signing, even though she says fall weekends near her are usually all about football.
Linda sold ten copies of Chicken Soup for the Soul: Inspiration for the Young at Heart. Perhaps the luck of the Rays was with her — at the time of the book signing, the Rays were in the playoffs!
“Batter Up”At Barnes & Noble
Long Beach, Washington author Jan Bono put her contributor’s copies of various Chicken Soup for the Soul titles to very good use. Recently, she donated a basket of books to the local Ocean Beach Education Foundation’s annual auction to supplement teachers’ classroom needs. A retired teacher herself, this foundation is near and dear to her heart. We are proud of her efforts to help the community through our books!
Included in the basket were Chicken Soup for the Soul: Teacher Tales, Chicken Soup for the Soul: Shaping the New You, Chicken Soup for the Soul: My Dog’s Life, Chicken Soup for the Soul: My Cat’s Life, and Chicken Soup for the Soul: Inspiration for the Young at Heart.
A Basket ofChicken Soup for the Soul
I have a wonderful photograph that I feel should be included with my story. Do you publish photographs in your books?
We love seeing your photographs but our format does not allow for them to be included in our books, except in rare cases where we include head shots. This happens in our “celebrity books” such as our songwriter books or in our book about extraordinary teens.
If you have a wonderful photograph that you would like to share with us after we publish your
story, we would love to see it, but only because we like to know more about our contributors!
Occasionally we will include one of your photos in this newsletter, so send photos to us when you think they would brighten our days, or would be of interest to the thousands of people who receive the newsletter.
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FUN FACTSabout
Chicken Soup for the Soul:O Canada
101 Heartwarming and Inspiring Stories by and for Canadians
Did you know that our audio books are available two ways? You can get any Chicken Soup for the Soul audio book as a set of CDs (perfect for listening in the car!) or as a single MP3-CD (great for adding to your iTunes library). The following lucky contributors were chosen randomly as the winners of our audio book contest. They received the book of their choice in the format of their choice. Enjoy!Jan Bono Susan CooperJudy Lee Green Carol Grund
David Martin
Congratulations to our audio book contest winners!
Your LatestInside Scoop
How do we correct typos
after publication?
Once the book is laid out and at the printer, it gets tough! No matter how hard we all try, typos sometimes make their way into the final printed books. We appreciate your e-mails identifying these errors so we can correct them on the next printing. We keep an error file and refer to it before we order our reprints. Correcting typos once a book is at the printer is a labor-intensive and expensive process! We have to send the new information to our book designer, who uploads the corrected pages to our printer. Then the printer has to delete the old pages and incorporate the new ones into the master file. That’s why we can only fix true typos, and not optional changes like a new website address or changing how a sentence is worded.
We do our best to catch typos before we send our books to the printer. It’s simple to fix errors when the manuscript is still a Word document, and that’s why we proofread it several times.
