Ever since Christy Heitger-Ewing was a little girl, she loved to write. But it wasn’t until her story “Diary of an Anorexic”, detailing her battle with anorexia, was published in a national magazine that she knew she wanted a career in writing. She often shares firsthand experiences in her writings. Through her vulnerability of sharing embarrassing, real and hard moments in her life, her words can serve as inspiration and strength to the reader.
“Life is hard,” she says. “I like writing stories that give people hope, make them smile and inspire them to spread joy to others.”
With a writing portfolio that spans over 2,600 articles for various magazine publications including the Towne Post, and 17 contributions to the Chicken Soup for the Soul series, Heitger-Ewing is certainly sharing a little piece of her soul with the world.
Her first story for the Chicken Soup for the Soul Series was published in 2013. Chicken Soup for the Soul books each have a specific theme, with a series of stories that retell true firsthand experiences that can evoke emotional responses from the reader. “It’s fun writing first-person stories about memories that matter to me but resonate with others,” says Heitger-Ewing.
Being consumed by guilt and grief after her mother’s suicide, she found healing in her writing. “At least half of my Chicken Soup stories are about my relationship with my mom – what I learned from her and admired about her, funny memories that involve her, and the anguish of losing her,” she says.
Using her experience navigating through grief to help to others heal, Heitger-Ewing says the most powerful story she has written for the franchise is “No Fault”, published in the book “Chicken Soup for the Soul: The Forgiveness Fix”, which details her journey to forgive herself following her mother’s suicide. Just recently, she had three publications inside three of the latest Chicken Soup for the Soul books: “Just Say Yes”, “Miracles, Angels & Messages from Heaven” and “Tales of Christmas”.
“Just Say Yes” was released on July 16. The stories in this book inspire the reader to have the confidence and motivation to try something new. Heitger-Ewing’s story “Acting on a Whim” details when she was a freshman in college and auditioned for a one-act play. “It was so outside my norm, but it was an awesome experience,” she says.
“Miracles, Angels & Messages from Heaven” details personal accounts of divine intervention and of the presence of angels with stories of hope. It was released September 17. “Searching for Mom” details Heitger-Ewing’s experience after her mom died by suicide and how she longed for her mother. “After my mom died by suicide, I ached to feel her presence but couldn’t,” she says. The story describes an encounter at the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention’s Out of the Darkness overnight walk with a mother who had lost her daughter to suicide. “I shared how I longed to feel a connection to my mom, and this woman told me how after her daughter died, she began finding dimes,” says Heitger-Ewing. After completing the 16-mile trek, she was walking back to her hotel room at 3 a.m. when she found a dime in the middle of the street. Since then, she says she has found several hundred dimes, and each time she picks it up, smiles and tells her mom she loves her.
Released on October 15 just in time for the holidays, “Chicken Soup for the Soul: Tales of Christmas: 101 Stories of Holiday Joy, Love and Gratitude” features holiday tales of disarray and chaos, thankfulness and gratitude, togetherness and more. “An Icy, Dicey Adventure” describes a holiday vacation when Heitger-Ewing was a teenager at her family’s Northern Michigan cabin, and of the chaos that ensued with her family. “Now it’s hysterical to look back on it as it reads like a Chevy Chase movie, but at the time we didn’t see the humor,” she says.
Chicken Soup for the Soul books are available to purchase via Amazon, Barnes & Noble and bookshop.org. You can also find Heitger-Ewing’s writing throughout the Towne Post magazine publications.
