When the “Chicken Soup for the Soul” series of books began accepting articles for its newest release, “Dreams and the Unexplainable,” Sallianne Hines knew she had a story to share.
Her article, “Angel on Board,” included in the new book by Amy Newmark and dream expert Kelly Sullivan Walden, describes how an innocent remark by her middle child saved their lives on a California freeway.
Her 3-year-old daughter asked, “Mommy, where do we go when we die?” When Hines told her they would go to heaven, her daughter cheerfully replied: “Good, because we’re going there right now.”
Glancing down at her speedometer, Hines said she applied the brakes as a precaution, wondering what her daughter could mean. That’s when she saw a flash of blue as a car went out of control and roared across the highway directly in front of where she managed to pull to a stop.
“If I had not braked when my daughter spoke up, the out-of-control car would have broadsided us at high speed,” Hines said. “We had a guardian angel on board that day.”
Hines will be signing copies of the “Chicken Soup for the Soul: Dreams and the Unexplainable” containing her story, beginning with a chicken soup supper at 6 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 14, at the Huron Public Library.
Hines, an award-winning author, is a native of Sioux Falls where her parents, Norm and Barb Hines, still live.
“I’ve always kept diaries and journals,” Hines said. “For me it’s to express feelings and organize them and explore new ideas. I also write poetry.”
She lived for many years in northern California, moving to the Huron area in 2001. She lived in Wolsey, Wessington and Woonsocket before moving into Huron. Two of her children, Dan Goetz and his wife, Amber, and daughter Libby Goetz, who is featured in the article, live in Huron, and her youngest daughter, Abbey Goetz, lives in Berkeley, Calif.

“Three children and two live here,” Hines said. “I have eight grandchildren and seven live in Huron. That’s one of the things that keeps me in Huron, for sure.”
Besides her writing career, Hines is also trained as a therapist specializing in infant and children’s mental health. She also worked with editing and page publication design for many years, some of those at the Miller Press.
She recently retired and now focuses on her writing. This includes meeting with other aspiring authors in the James River Writers group, which meets the first and third Tuesday each month at 4 p.m. at the Huron Public Library, and the Teen Writers group, PentaWriters, which she facilitates the first and third Friday each month at 4 p.m. at the library. This is for middle and high school youth.
Hines said she had her first article published in a magazine in 1994.
“I wrote a letter to the editor to Mothering magazine commenting on domestic violence, and they wrote back asking if I could write an article about domestic violence,” Hines said. “That article won a Maggie, the western regional publishers’ award for best public service article in a series.”
Since then, she’s published about a dozen articles in magazines, including one last summer in the magazine “Mary Jane’s Farm,” and has written two novels. She is looking for a publisher for her first novel, tentatively called, “Love and Stones.”
“The novels I wrote were both inspired by Jane Austen,” Hines said. “They’re women’s fiction, one contemporary and one historical.
“Big publishers won’t look at you unless you have an agent,” she added. “You can self-publish, which is easy; but it’s not so easy to self-market. You compete with thousands and thousands of self-published books.
“Writing a book is only a third of the journey,” she added. “You need to get an agent, part 2, and from there is marketing — part 3.”
Another series of books she is working on will share different ways to connect with children that she developed in her work as a child therapist.
“One book will be for professionals to use, another for parents, and the last for kids themselves who are in a therapeutical relationship,” Hines said. “If you can’t connect with a child, your therapy will not be effective.”
She has also established an editing and proofreading business. One client, Colleen Liebsch with of PS Publishing, is affiliated with the S.D. Humanities Council. They publish a series of books for children that both entertain and build character and are distributed through the schools to every child. “I’m editing the writing and design and layout of the pages,” Hines said.
A recent book was written by a 9-year-old boy in Bahrain in the Middle East.
“It’s about a young boy who is an orphan who travels to the other countries around him and meets boys just like him, and how their friendships change their lives,” Hines said. “The next book we’ll do was written by a woman from England.”
To contact Hines, message her through Facebook at authorshineswrites or email her at shineswrites@gmail.com.
“I love hearing from readers,” Hines added.

CRYSTAL PUGSLEY/PLAINSMAN
Local author Sallianne Hines, left, presents a copy of “Chicken Soup for the Soul: Dreams and the Unexplainable” to  the assistant director at Huron Public Library. Hines will be part of the Authors Among Us series at the library, with steaming bowls of chicken soup served beginning at 6 p.m.