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Maxine Leick of Broken Bow found out just last month that her story of a childhood dog was published in the latest edition of Chicken Soup for the Soul, titled What I Learned from the Dog. By ELLEN MORTENSEN
Chief Assistant Editor
For most of us, part of growing older includes the realization that life is all about lessons. The happy moments, the painful moments, the general ups and downs that are an everyday part of the passing years - all serve to teach us valuable life lessons.
There is a new book now available from Chicken Soup for the Soul which contains 101 stories about life, love and lessons learned - from dogs! That’s right, dogs. And just about anyone who is an animal lover and dog owner will tell you, dogs can be very good teachers.
Just ask Maxine Leick of Broken Bow. She is not only a dog lover and owner, she is also one of the story contributors to the book. Maxine’s story, titled A Real, Living Lassie Come Home, can be found on page 71 of Chicken Soup for the Soul: What I Learned from the Dog.
Maxine grew up in Holt County, near Stuart, which is where she lived at the time the story she writes about took place. She shares a touching story of a loving Collie dog who wandered on to her family’s farm and eventually became her dog.
Over the years, Maxine kept track of Collie - who owned him and where he lived. Without giving away too much of the story, suffice it to say Maxine learned a valuable lesson in loyalty and devotion from her friend, Collie.
Though she was only 4-years-old when the saga began, her attachment to this dog instilled in her a life-long love for dogs, particularly Collies. She and husband, Joe, have owned the breed themselves for more than 10 years.
Maxine and Joe have lived in several locations throughout Nebraska, traveling extensively due to Joe’s job. In 1999, the family settled in Broken Bow when Joe went to work as an accountant at BD.
Maxine works as a substitute teacher, and also does baking for the new Prairie Grounds coffee shop. She is also the mother of two children, Seth and Allyn.
Besides her love for dogs, she has also always had a passion for writing. So when the opportunity presented itself for her to combine the two, she went for it.
Maxine says she has written and submitted stories to publications such as Readers Digest over the years, but has never had one published. A few years ago a friend shared with her that Chicken Soup for the Soul was looking for writers to contribute stories for a book for horse lovers they were working on.
Unfortunately, by the time Maxine got the information and looked into it, the deadline for submitting stories had passes. However that encounter put her in touch with the Chicken Soup Website, where she found a list of possible future book titles and deadlines for stories for those books.
She says she went to the Website every so often just to check and see if any of the future books caught her attention. Then, last year, she saw What I Learned from my Dog added to the list.
She saw she had some time to get her story in, so she submitted her story about Collie. The deadline came and went, but Maxine didn’t hear anything about her story. In fact, it was six months before she finally received notification via e-mail that her story was one of those being considered for publication in the book.
She was elated, and immediately began the process of editing, proofing and paperwork, which took from April through July. Once all of her paperwork and everything was submitted in July, she again heard nothing from the publishers.
“On about Sept. 20, a box showed up at my house. I saw the box and thought, ‘Who ordered what?’”, Maxine laughs. “It was 10 copies of the book.”
She says it wasn’t until then that she knew for sure her story had been published. During the months of waiting, Maxine shared with only a handful of people what was going on.
“I didn’t want to talk about it, because I was afraid if I did it was going to go away,” she explains.
Maxine says when she opened the box and saw the books the first thing she did was turn to the back where all of the authors are listed to make sure she was in there. She says it has always been her desire to write books, and she hopes this is just the first step in making that happen.
In an effort to hone her skills, Maxine has spent the past 15 to 20 years attending various writing seminars and author presentations. She has also submitted a number of stories for other Chicken Soup books and has yet to hear back on those.
For now Maxine says she is enjoying the self-satisfaction of having one of her stories published. The fact that it is the story of her beloved Collie just makes it that much sweeter.
“I was very excited,” says Maxine as she relives the moment she opened the box. “It was a very pleasant surprise!”
All of the stories in the Chicken Soup for the Soul books are true stories, at least to the best of the author’s recollection. Though she was very young when this story occurred, it always stuck with her.
“It was just a small piece of my childhood, but had a life-long effect,” says Maxine.
Chicken Soup for the Soul: What I Learned from the Dog, was released Sept. 22. |
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