Tuesday’s mail brought an interesting letter: a story I had written about our first guide dog, Arbor, is going to be published in the September release of Chicken Soup for the Soul: Children with Special Needs.

Actually, that much I already knew. Happily so! It’s not easy to crack the Chicken Soup books. I have some writer friends who have been trying for years.

What was news to me was that my story was one of the top rated story out of 5,000 entries. Chicken Soup whittles those entries down, then submits them to a panel of readers who read and rate the top 150 stories. Those scores were averaged; then the best stories were considered for the book.

So, based on those ratings, they informed me that “One Brief Hour,” my story, scored among the highest.

Chicken Soup had such a larger than usual response to this particular topic (children with special needs) that they launched a website to help families: www.soulsupporter.com

Check it out!

And just to encourage you aspiring writers out there…the first Chicken Soup for the Soul book was rejected by over thirty publishers before snagging one. The right one.

So don’t give up!