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Area Author in Chicken Soup Series

Cheryl Bentley/SUNCOAST NEWS

Suzanne Baginskie still has the ball she won as an honorable mention winner in a contest for the best recipe using Hungry Jack biscuits. Baginskie's story about the contest was recently published in "Chicken Soup for the Soul Kids in the Kitchen."

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By Cheryl  Bentley | The Suncoast News

Published: October 24, 2007

When Suzanne Baginskie was a child, she checked out eight books at the library in her hometown of Avenel, N. J. The librarian told her that was too many for her to read within the check-out period.

Baginskie was determined to prove her wrong.

She read them all in one day and triumphantly returned the next day to check out some more.

"I've always been driven," says Baginskie, the first-born daughter of a New Jersey family.

So driven, she has managed to get her stories into six books in the "Chicken Soup of the Soul" series, earning her the nickname among some area writers as Queen of Chicken Soup. The books feature true inspirational short stories on a variety of topics.

They are notoriously hard to break into. According to the form letter she receives when her work is accepted, between 2,000 to 5,000 stories are submitted for each book, Baginskie explains. From those, only 101 stories are chosen.

Latest entry

Baginskie's latest entry in a "Chicken Soup" book, "Kids in the Kitchen," was recently released.

To produce that one, she had to revise her original story overnight. The original piece told of Baginskie's winning an honorable mention in a Hungry Jack biscuit contest of favorite recipes using the packaged biscuit dough.

"Chicken of the Soup" co-editor Antonio Fontera told her he liked it but he had too many memory stories. He wanted something different by the next day.

Baginskie never skipped a beat. Revising a story in a day while working full time as a legal assistant in the New Port Richey law office of Williams, Ristoff and Proper was a snap for a woman who always puts in a few hours of writing after a four-mile walk after work.

"I just reached into my memory and pulled out something to add to it," she says. "I can think fast, and I can write fast."

In her revised story, Baginskie added the story of Bobby, her son's friend who helped her make their mini-lasagna recipe with the biscuits.

Helped grieving

Participating with Baginskie's son Alex in devising a recipe helped Bobby in his grieving process over the recent death of his parents.

"His soul took a giant step toward healing and accepting the death of his parents, and I was grateful to play a part in mending the void in a little boy's heart," Baginskie concluded in her piece.

Although her revised story was still a memory piece, it added a heartstrings element that wasn't there before.

"Chicken Soup" likes heartstrings stories, Baginskie says.

She ought to know. She studied five "Chicken Soup" books before submitting her first story.

The "Chicken Soup" books came after a childhood of writing in her diary with the discipline of an adult. Baginskie produced four pages every night from the time she was 8. She also practiced her writing skills by corresponding with 60 pen pals in the 1980s and 1990s.

Goes all the way

Yes, 60. When Baginskie does something, she goes all the way.

But she really got serious about writing when she attended a mystery writers conference in Fort Lauderdale in 1997. After the conference, she took a creative writing class.

"That's when it clicked," she remembers. "You learn the rules, even though there are no rules."

She also attended seminars on writing techniques sponsored by the Tampa Area Romance Writers and joined other writer organizations.

Two years later, in 1999, she published the first piece for which she was paid.

In "The Huggable Cat Burglar" in Cats magazine, Baginskie wrote about her father's cat Jeffrey, a feline with a fetish for pilfering keys and jewelry.

Turning point

The $25 she got from the piece was a turning point for Baginskie, who up to that time had been writing for free. It signified she had earned her writer's chops.

She decided from that time on, she would be paid for her work.

In addition to the "Chicken Soup" stories, she has published pieces in True Romance magazine, "New Garden State Horror Anthology," and various writing magazines.

Baginskie appears to tackle her writing with the fierce determination of the little girl who read eight books in one day.

She worked full, eight-hour days at writing in her Hudson home when she recently retired from 25 years as office manager of the law firm.

After several months off the job, however, the firm called her back in a new role as legal assistant.

Working on 2 novels

After work, Baginskie works most of the time on "Chicken Soup" pieces and is also at work on two novels under the pen name of Suzanne Alexander.

Of course, the woman who says she likes everything in its place carefully designed the name. With the surname beginning with A, "it will put me right at the top of the shelf."

She will also be teaching a creative writing course at the Brandon campus of the Hillsborough Community College.

She advises new writers to join writers groups for feedback. Others often provide an objectivity the writer cannot. "You may love it," she says of finished pieces, "but they may not."

Writers also need to edit their work. "You almost end up revising every line," she says.

Writers should also pay attention to the business of writing by studying a prospective publication for its style and type of articles.

Don't get discouraged

And don't get discouraged, she tells new writers. For her six "Chicken Soup" acceptances, she has had more than 30 "Chicken Soup" rejections.

A passion for life doesn't seem to hurt either. Baginskie mentions she has just learned the word plethora. "Plethora," she repeats, obviously savoring its sound and perhaps resonating with the word's meaning of overabundance.

Plethora will fit in nicely in Baginskie's crammed-to-the- brim life.

"I have an unquenchable desire of living life to the fullest," she says.

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