Category Archives: writing

Aug12

Chicken Soup call-out for TBI-related stories and poems

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Chicken Soup for the Soul: Recovering from Traumatic Brain Injuries
101 Stories of Hope, Healing, and Hard Work

Have you or has someone you loved sustained a traumatic brain injury or TBI? Have you helped a friend through the recovery process? Are you a professional caregiver or health care provider whose life has been impacted by a TBI survivor’s story? With a traumatic brain injury occurring every 18.5 seconds in this country, chances are you have been touched in some way by traumatic brain injury. If so, we want to hear your story.

And so do the five million Americans living with the effects of traumatic brain injury! TBI is the signature wound of our soldiers coming home from Iraq and Afghanistan. TBI is literally changing the rules for athletes, from the NFL to middle schools. Your stories may inspire and encourage folks going through what you went through. What do you know now that you wish you knew then? What words of wisdom do you have to offer from your current vantage point to those just beginning their TBI journey? What helped you most in your recovery that you want to share? What lesson did you learn from an amazing survivor of traumatic brain injury?

Here are some topics and issues we’d like to see explored (and we know you have more):

  • TBI in the military
• TBI in sports
• The effects of TBI on the family
• Memory loss
• Coping strategies that worked
• Post-traumatic stress disorder or PTSD
• Anxiety and depression
• Self-acceptance
• “The new normal”
• Communication
• The role of faith, family and friends
• Having a positive attitude
• Going back to school
• Going back to work
• Resilience
• The hidden nature of the wound that is TBI

Please remember, we do not like “as told to” stories. Write in the first person about yourself or someone close to you. If you ghostwrite a story for someone else we will list his or her name as the author. If a story was previously published, we will probably not use it unless it ran in a small circulation venue. Let us know where the story was previously published in the “Comments” section of the submission form. If the story was published in a past Chicken Soup for the Soul book, please do not submit it.

If your story is chosen, you will be a published author and your bio will be printed in the book if you so choose. You will also receive a check for $200 and 10 free copies of your book, worth more than $100. You will retain the copyright for your story and you will retain the right to resell it.

SUBMISSIONS GO TO OUR WEBSITE. Select the Submit Your Story link on the left tool bar and follow the directions.

The deadline for story and poem submissions is November 30, 2013.