Tina Haapala, Excuse Editor

Image from flickr ...or, why FNASR isn't necessarily as scary as MRSA . Sure, many of you would like to just write, write, write, all day long and not have to worry to much about the "business" aspect of the writing world. The catch is, of course, that writing is a business (unless you are just writing for yourself or your family, and most of us want to share, i.e. publish, therefore: it's a business). A writer submitting to contests or markets or signing contracts needs to understand the basics about publication rights. When submitting to a contest, get out your magnifying glass and read that fine print. Sometimes just SUBMITTING is enough for you to give away your rights. (I try to keep these kinds of contests out of the Scoop , or at least give my readers a heads up, but ALWAYS read before sending in your hard work.) If you sign a contract for an essay to be printed in an anthology, you may not be able to sell the essay again, or you may, depending on the c...

The popularity of the Chicken Soup for the Soul books is beyond extraordinary. What started out as a multi- rejected book idea has turned into a multi-million dollar book empire. More than 110 million Chicken Soup for the Soul books have been sold. Many of the books have been translated to 40 different languages. I'm proud that my personal essays have been included in some of these books, and I hope to continue being a Chicken Soup contributor. My Story I thought I would share a bit about being published in these collections. I'm very happy with my Chicken Soup experiences, and part of that may be that I went into it with little expectations at first. I started with them because I had a few stories that seemed to fit what they were looking for, and I thought I had nothing to lose. Unlike some of the other markets and contests I was looking at, submitting to Chicken Soup could be done at no cost to me, and I didn't even need to worry about a postage stamp, because they ha...

Sometime during my fourth grade year, my class got to spend a few hours with an honest-to-goodness writer. He lead the class, getting our young minds motivated with metaphors and similes. We learned all about poetry; sometimes it rhymes, sometimes it doesn't. He encouraged us to be silly, to be brave, to write beautifully, or to write badly. It was all part of the process. I already liked to write. That same year, I wrote a short story that won a prize in my class. The year before, I wrote short stories and knock-knock jokes, and was given a chance to laminate them and have them available for my classmates to check out at the school library. The day the writer-in-residence came to visit our school, I wrote six or more poems. I remember one in particular I was quite proud of. I thought it painted a picture with words, just like the writer told us to do. Those words have since left my memory, although I feel nostalgia for rainbows, sherbet, and blooming flowers when I think of tha...