Two Submissions Short-Listed for Chicken Soup’s Curvy & Confident

Today I got word that both of the submissions I sent in for Chicken Soup for the Soul: Curvy & Confident, “Thunder Thighs and All” and “A Blessing, Not a Curse,” have made it to the first phase of the selection round!

This is very exciting. The other two times I received this notice, both stories made it into their respective publications.

First with “The Bubble Bath” in Chicken Soup for the Soul: Home Sweet Home: 101 Stories about Hearth, Happiness, and Hard Work.

Then with “Kitty Bites” in Chicken Soup for the Soul: My Very Good, Very Bad Cat: 101 Heartwarming Stories about Our Happy, Heroic & Hilarious Pets

As I wrote about when my story got accepted in My Very Good, Very Bad Cat, I was excited about that acceptance because it put me one step closer to getting the next contributor badge.

The one I have is for having had anything published in a Chicken Soup for the Soul collection.

I thought that was exciting enough, and have been very proud to display it on my site, but…I wanted to see if I could do it again. (Maybe to prove to myself the first time wasn’t a fluke?)

Anyway, when I got the second acceptance, it made me hungry for a third. The competitor in me came out and I wanted to add the other badge to my collection.

I’ve submitted a couple of things to other Chicken Soup call outs, but didn’t make it to the selection round with those.

Not until now with this Curvy & Confident collection.

Which is an issue very near and dear to my heart. It’s why I took a chance on submitting more than one entry. (Which normally I don’t do. I may have more essays in me, but I’ve never sent in more than one at a time per call out before.)

But this one…well, I could’ve written even more. Being confident is new to me, but being curvy?

Even when I weighed only 118 pounds I was told I was heavy, and not knowing any better I believed it. So I’ve felt “big” my whole life.

And since exercise and dieting, including the extreme food deprivation chemo induced, has never helped me get anywhere near my ideal weight, I’ve had to learn to love me as I am. That’s definitely been a learning curve!

But the stories I submitted represent valuable lessons learned on the road to self-acceptance.

I’m super excited both are being considered, and if both get published? I’m going to be humbled to my core and probably sit down and have myself a very big cry that day. Happy tears, of course!