🎙️ What happens when people gather to listen deeply across histories, cultures, and lived experience?

In this special conversation on Lead with Storytelling, we sit down with Shirley N. Hager, Willow Anderson, and Barb Martin to reflect on The Gatherings — a powerful exploration of relationship-building, truth-telling, healing, and Indigenous-settler dialogue.

Together, they discuss:

🌿 The importance of listening across difference

🌿 Community, memory, and reconciliation

🌿 What meaningful gathering looks like in practice

🌿 The emotional labour of storytelling and social change

🌿 How stories can help reshape the future of relationships in Canada

This is a reflective and deeply human conversation about what it means to come together with honesty, humility, and care.

🎧 Watch the full conversation here: [Insert YouTube Link]

⏱️ SHOW NOTES

00:00 – Introduction

03:12 – What inspired The Gatherings

10:25 – Building relationships across communities

18:47 – The role of listening in reconciliation

28:10 – Storytelling as healing and witness

39:45 – Indigenous knowledge and community care

50:20 – What gathering means today

58:34 – Final reflections

📘 Book Website: https://www.thegatheringsbook.com/

🎧 Get the Audiobook:

https://www.audible.com/pd/The-Gatherings-Audiobook/B0D9WJ2GF7

📚 Download the Teacher’s Guide:

https://www.thegatheringsbook.com/teachers-guide

#LeadWithStorytelling #TheGatherings #Storytelling #Reconciliation #CommunityDialogue #IndigenousVoices #SocialJustice #Podcast

In this episode of Lead with Storytelling, I sit down with Karina Fabian—a multi-genre writer whose work spans science fiction, fantasy, devotional writing, and comedic storytelling. From dragons and nuns in space to the discipline of writing through doubt, Karina shares how stories become a form of connection, meaning, and even joy.

We explore how humor sharpens storytelling, how speculative fiction opens up deeper moral questions, and why writing might just be a conversation—across time—with your reader.

✨ Episode Highlights

🐉 How a dragon detective was born from improv comedy

🎭 The surprising link between stand-up comedy and storytelling craft

🌌 Writing “nuns in space” and building believable speculative worlds

✍🏽 Why writing is really about communication and connection

📚 Turning writing workshops into practical, accessible books

💡 Finding meaning in the stories we tell—and the ones we almost don’t share

🔗 Show Notes & Links

🌐 Karina Fabian’s Website

👉 https://karinafabian.com

📖 The Writer Boost Series

👉 https://karinafabian.com/writeboost

📘 Persevere in Your Writing (Book 1 – out March 2)

Part of the Writer Boost series focused on staying consistent and overcoming doubt.

🎓 Live Class: Publishing on Amazon (KDP Demo)

👉 https://www.bigmarker.com/catholic-writers-conferences/ask-an-expert-kdp-with-karina-fabian

💲 $25 | FREE for Catholic Writers Guild members (check #member-bennies for coupon)

🖊️ Catholic Writers Guild

👉 https://catholicwritersguild.com

#LeadWithStorytelling #KarinaFabian #WritersLife #Storytelling #SciFi #Fantasy #WritingTips #CreativeProcess #CatholicWritersGuild #AuthorInterview

In this episode of Lead with Storytelling, I sit down with Rufina Ajalie to talk about her beautiful and expansive book, Open Roads, Open Hearts.

This conversation explores what it means to travel not just across geography, but across identity, memory, and belonging. Rufina shares the deeper story behind the book — the moments of uncertainty, discovery, and human connection that shaped its pages.

We talk about:

• The emotional landscape of movement and migration

• How travel changes the stories we tell about ourselves

• The courage it takes to remain open in unfamiliar places

• Writing as a practice of reflection and return

Open Roads, Open Hearts is ultimately about curiosity — about meeting the world (and ourselves) with attention and generosity.

If you’ve ever felt transformed by a place, a journey, or a conversation with a stranger, this episode will resonate.

—

📖 About the Book

Open Roads, Open Hearts is a deeply reflective exploration of travel, connection, and the stories we carry with us. Rufina invites readers to see movement not as escape, but as encounter — with landscapes, cultures, and the inner self.