"Empathy is my storytelling superpower", featuring novelist Leigh Shalloway

"Empathy is my storytelling superpower", featuring novelist Leigh Shalloway

January 27, 2026 · 1h 10m · Season 6 · Episode 1

About this episode

Leigh Shalloway discusses her mental health journey and how it influences her writing in the context of her novel 'Journey back to you'.

Welcome to season 6!!! Our first guest is a novelist, Leigh Shalloway. She wrote an incredible book called "Journey back to you". In today's episode Leigh shared her experience with mental health, being diagnosed with clinical depression at 30 , and how that deepen he writing. She opened up about experiencing emotional extremes and how it allowed her to write characters who feel real and complex. Leigh took us into her writing process, research that went into this book, personal stories, past relationships that helped her built Kathleen, Jase and Richard. Journey back to you is the first novel in the Hilltown Trilogy for the author. Its a romantic novel, with complex interpersonal relationships, heartbreak, once thriving small town , turned to addiction and drugs because of greed but there is hope, there is love and there is survival. To learn more about Leigh Shalloway and to order your copy of the book, visit https://www.hilltownseries.com/ #whatsyourdefiningmoment #sharingourstorieshasapowertoheal #thebeststorytellingpodcast #mentalhealthmatters

People in this episode

Host: Iryna Barnett

Guest: Leigh Shalloway

Topics covered

Keywords

Mentioned in this episode

Books & works: Journey back to you, Hilltown Trilogy

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