A story about New Year’s Day written by Naperville resident Carmela Martino is being read around the nation.
Martino’s story is included in “Chicken Soup for the Soul: Tales of Christmas.”
“A Life-Changing New Year’s Tradition” is based on something Martino, 67, learned of years ago and put into use.
“I had read online about having a ‘Good Things Jar.’ Whenever something good happens, you write it down and put it in a jar. On New Year’s Eve or New Year’s Day, you read all the notes,” she said.
“It’s a really nice way to end the year. People forget some of them. So, it’s a really fun way to start the new year, to start fresh and happy. We’ve done it for many years,” Martino said.
Her story focused on how the jar helped her during the pandemic year of 2020.
“During COVID, I felt like I wasn’t going to have any more good things to put in the jar,” she said. “I was depressed and lethargic. When they issued the lockdown, I couldn’t go to the library (in downtown Naperville). I had this jar, it was almost mocking me. But I realized that even during the pandemic, there were good things that helped me get through that time. That’s what the story is about.”
Yes, there were good things worth noting.
“It wasn’t so bad. My husband John and I started walking in the forest preserves. We saw birds we had never seen. It led me to find, in a Facebook group, about birds of Illinois. ‘Oh, we never saw this bird. Let’s look for it.’ That and little things that brightened our days,” she said.
Sad that her extended Italian-American family could not be together for the holidays that year, she found solace in a video chat with her then 85-year-old aunt.
“It was like, ‘Oh, my gosh, who would have thought this a year ago?’ There were still things we could do to brighten that difficult time and I think having the ‘Good Things Jar’ helped me,” she said.
Martino was paid $250 her story and received 10 free copies of the book. She can buy more at a reduced price, she said.
Amy Newmark, editor and publisher of the “Chicken Soup for the Soul” series, said Martino’s story being selected “is a big deal because we had 4,000 to 5,000 submissions. And we read every single submission.”
There are 101 stories in the book.
“I love to put some New Year’s stories in our Christmas book,” Newmark said. “I liked Carmela’s story, which is a twist on the more conventional approach to gratitude, which is to have a journal. The gratitude jar. What’s great about it is it makes you approach every single day with a different perspective. You start looking for the good things instead of the bad things. That’s very helpful.
“I can see hundreds of people doing that because they read it in her story,” Newmark said.
Martino’s story is the last one in the book.
“I like to end the book with a nice, strong story. You finished Christmas, here’s a great idea to put you on a positive footing for the new year,” Newmark said.
The “Chicken Soup for the Soul” series has proven very popular. Since it began in 1993, more than 400 books have resulted “and close to 300 are still in print. We put out a new one almost every month,” Newmark said.
“Everybody loves true stories because truth really is stranger than fiction. People love learning from other’s experiences,” she said.
Some of the proceeds from book sales goes to the Marines’ Toys for Tots program, Newmark said.
This is the second time Martino has appeared in the “Chicken Soup for the Soul” series. She wrote a story for teens that was published in 2008. “I’m thrilled to be in it again. They’re pretty selective. It’s not easy to get in,” Martino said.
“I’ve been a writer for over 30 years. I started as a freelance writer for newspapers and magazines,” she said.
She’s had two books for teens published.
One was titled “Rosa, Sola,” which borrowed for her childhood, when her mother sadly gave birth to a stillborn baby boy and nearly died when Martino was 10. Thirty years later, Martino wrote of the fear and pain she experienced.
“It was very therapeutic (to write about it). I realized I had never been allowed to grieve for my brother. They wouldn’t let me go to the funeral because they thought it would be traumatic for me. Writing that story, I cried. I was 40,” she said.
Another book for young adults, “Playing By Heart,” was inspired by the true story of two sisters living in Milan, Italy, in the 1700s.
Writing, she said, “has always been an outlet for me since junior high school.”
She didn’t focus on it for her career, instead earning a bachelor’s degree in computer science from the University of Illinois Chicago and working in that field for years.
“I was a programmer, a database analyst. But I got burned out because those were the days when you couldn’t fix a problem remotely. I’d have to go in the middle of the night. That got old,” she said.
Then she was writing training course manuals for a company. “They had very few people who understood computer science and could explain it to others,” she said.
That led her to being a freelance writer for newspapers and magazines for many years, eventually earning a master’s degree in fine arts. She taught writing classes for 20 years at the College of DuPage.
Looking ahead, you can expect more stories written by Martino.
“Oh, my gosh, I have so many ideas,” she said. “For the first time in my life, I have a literary agent. … When I started, you didn’t need an agent. But now so many people are writing, editors are overwhelmed. You pretty much need an agent.”
You can find “Chicken Soup for the Soul: Tales of Christmas” at Barnes & Noble, some Walmart stores and various online sites, including Amazon.
Steve Metsch is a freelance reporter for the Naperville Sun.
