About Me

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Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Wild Card, 2006. Winner of "best oral sex scene" - Scarlet Magazine. Amanda's Young Men, 2009. Excerpted in Scarlet Magazine; Juicy Bits. Sarah's Education, 2009. Hit the #1 spots on Amazon.co.uk adult fiction & adult romance best seller lists. Jade Magazine bestowed the best cover art, 2009 award on Sarah's Education. "Get Up, Stand Up!" which appeared in The Cougar Book (Logical-Lust) won me the title 'Story Teller of the Year 2011' at The Erotic Awards, London, UK. Sarah's Education took the #3 spot on a list of the 30 most titillating titles of all time, as reported in English Daily Mail ;Female; Nov. 12, 2012. Debutante, a petite novel for e-publisher Imprint Mischief, (Harper-Collins) pubbed in 2012. I tutor writing students and am a member of the WGC. D.M. Thomas said: Madeline Moore writes great sex without metaphor and that's not easy to do. Kris Saknussemm said: You're a good egg, Madeline Moore. I am a good egg who writes great sex without metaphor! Yippee!

Thursday 10 February 2011

My Convo with the Chicken Soup Guy

My eye cream has been gently massaged around the eye area and I've let Leo Van Meow Meow go out on the balcony so he can see that the weather has not changed much since this morning. I've set up the heater in front of the expensive chapel chair that is now his and I've bid him a fond good night.

It's time to join Felix, already fast asleep in our comfy King size bed. Soon I shall slip into that state of bliss we call sleep, content with what I have accomplished on this uneventful but not unpleasant Wednesday -

Wednesday? Why, that means I'm supposed to have a new post up tomorrow. I faithfully promised my fans new posts on Monday and Thursday. It's already g.d. Thursday in the UK, where both of them live. Oh fer the love of Mike!

Power up, oh keeper of promises. Draw from the mighty imagination that has conjured up three entire erotica novels and countless, that is if you count on your fingers and toes, sexy short stories. Write something and throw in some pictures and go to bed. It can't be all that hard . . . can it?

Can - didn't I have an idea earlier in the week - something about a can - a can of soup - a can of chicken soup? I did. I do. I remember now!



My Correspondence with the webmaster for Chicken Soup for the Soul

Subject: Submissions: Hello Chicken Soup. Your Submission Guidelines neglect to indicate the amount you pay for the stories you include in your books. Please tell me: What do you pay? Warmest Regards, Madeline Moore

The reply:RE:Submissions Dear Madeline: Thank you for your inquiry. If your story is selected for publication in one of our Chicken Soup for the Soul books then you will receive a one-time fee of $200 and ten free copies of the book your story appears in (worth more than $100) for the rights to print your story. This information is included on our website. We look forward to getting some submissions from you. Sincerely, Chicken Soup for the Soul



Hmmm. I go to Amazon and try to count the number of Chicken Soup books. I quit counting at two hundred. I get irritable. My reply:

I am afraid that a payment of two hundred dollars for inclusion in a franchise that is making millions for its editors would cause this writer's soul great pain.


I start thinking about this issue. After all, what does Reader's Digest pay its contributors? Well, while it still pays Americans real dollars, Canadians contributors are now paid with a subscription to the magazine.

I start checking out the authors with contributions in Chicken Soup for the Writer's Soul. Some are: Ernest J. Gaines, Terry McMillan, Sue Grafton, Steve Allen, George Plimpton, and Ray Bradbury. I found Gloria Steinham's name as a contributor to another of the Chicken Soup books, I don't remember which one, but that was when I stopped searching authors and sent this reply to the webmaster:

On Second Thought: Me again. Having visited Amazon and admired the many, many pages of Chicken Soup anthologies, as well as noticing that Gloria Steinham has contributed to one of them, I have changed my mind. Perhaps what I should do, instead of whining at you, is purchase Chicken Soup for the Writer's Soul. It isn't easy being a writer but it's harder to be a bitter writer than a hopeful one. I must try to stay on the hopeful side. In case I haven't made myself clear, I apologise for my response to your polite reply to my initial inquiry.

The final reply from the webmaster:
Hi Madeline Many people are interested in being included in one of our Chicken Soup for the Soul books. We get more than a few thousand story and poem submissions for each book title we publish. We do hope that, after reconsidering, you will submit your work to us. Chicken Soup for the Soul



So there you go. Of course now I'm trying to think up my own franchise. Something like Borscht for Bitter Bastards or Minestrone for the Miserable or Stone Soup for the Stoner or Lentil Soup for Losers but mostly, I'm just thinking I did the right thing. Do you?



Nightie night. Mad.

4 comments:

Jeremy Edwards said...

_Consomme for Consummate Idiots_ could have a big audience.

Madeline Moore said...

Getting close to the ...for Dummies franchise, tho. I wonder if I should write to them and grumble, too?

Janine Ashbless said...

Oh you have cujones, Madeline! I totally love the idea of Borscht for Bitter Bastards.

Anonymous said...

Funny one, Mad! A lesson learned, I'm sure.

Love,

He who sleeps while your midnight oil still burns,

Felix