Every person has an internal jumble of thoughts, feelings, dreams, and desires. It can be complicated! How do you, as a writer, put all of those inner feelings and experiences into words? In this podcast, best-selling author Susy Flory explains that your story is an act of translation. Together, Kathi and Susy help us think through how we can translate those deep life experiences into something that makes sense.

Listen in and learn:

• How to pay attention and create an experience for the reader. • Which books you should be reading in order to grow as an author. • Susy’s secret for doing what seems impossible. • What making cheese and making a story have in common!

The ultimate job of a storyteller is to take an unfamiliar situation and help someone understand it in a deep way. Check out this final episode of the series and learn how to create your own thoroughly compelling book!

Need to catch up on episodes 1-3? You can do that right here: Episode 1, Episode 2, Episode 3.

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About Sanctuary: For decades, his family rescued lost and forgotten donkeys in the Irish countryside. He had no idea that one day, the donkeys would rescue him.

Patrick Barrett grew up on the back of a donkey. In the small village of Liscarroll, the young boy helped his family run a sanctuary for abandoned and abused donkeys. Struggling in school, Patrick only felt truly accepted in the presence of these funny, fuzzy, touching animals. It was like magic, how he and the donkeys understood each other. He became a true “donkey whisperer”—reading their body language, communicating with them in ways they could understand, and teaching himself how to “speak” in their distinctive calls.

But when Patrick was of age, he shipped out with the Irish Army and encountered unimaginable wartime horrors in Lebanon and Kosovo. In the aftermath, he returned home a broken man, sinking into the depths of PTSD and addictions. He believed nothing could save him. But he hadn’t counted on the donkeys.

Sanctuary is the remarkable true story of how faith turned one lost man’s life around with the help of the rescue animals who loved him. It’s an antidote to despair and a call to hope, revealing the beauty and wonder of Ireland as you’ve never seen it before.