Mary Farias & Chloe Rachel Gallaway
Economy Creators
**What if the story inside you carries medicine—not only for the people who may someday read it, but first for you?**
In this episode of Economy Creators, Mary Reiss Farias sits down with author and Story Medicine Guide Chloe Rachel Gallaway for a beautiful conversation about memoir writing, emotional memory, healing, family, creativity, becoming a writer, and finding the courage to tell the story that keeps calling you.
Chloe is the author of *The Soulful Child: Twelve Years in the Wilderness*, a memoir inspired by her extraordinary childhood growing up on 500 acres in the wilderness of northern New Mexico.
With no electricity or running water, Chloe's childhood education happened as much through nature, animals, gardening, chores, survival, and family as it did through traditional academics.
She didn't begin formal school until age 12.
And yet she became a writer.
Chloe shares the remarkable evolution from putting a period after every word as a child, to writing endless run-on sentences, to studying poetry and writing, and ultimately becoming a published memoirist who now helps other people discover the stories within themselves.
But her journey didn't begin with believing she was a writer.
For years, the book lived inside her.
People told her, “You should write a book.”
She still hesitated.
Then came a catalyst.
After the birth of her daughter, Chloe returned to the mountain where she'd grown up to introduce her baby to her father. Seeing her aging father while holding her newborn daughter brought the passage of time into startling focus.
She realized her father wouldn't always be there.
And suddenly, writing the story mattered more than writing it perfectly.
That decision eventually led Chloe to something deeper than writing craft:
**Story Medicine.**
Chloe believes our stories are not stored solely in our intellectual memories. They also live within our bodies, emotions, sensory experiences, and relationships.
Rather than beginning only with structure, grammar, scenes, or the technical requirements of writing, Story Medicine invites writers to move out of their heads and into the emotional memory of their experiences.
The result can be something much bigger than simply finishing a manuscript.
It can become a process of meaning-making, integration, wisdom—and healing.
Mary and Chloe explore:
• What Story Medicine is and why our stories carry meaning
• How to begin writing when your story feels too big
• Moving beyond perfectionism and fear of writing “correctly”
• Why writing craft matters—but doesn't necessarily need to be the gateway
• The difference between writing *about* a memory and dropping into the scene
• How emotional and sensory memory can deepen memoir writing
• Why nature, music, sound, breath, and the body can help unlock stories
• Finding beauty alongside pain in our personal narratives
• Writing honestly about family while recognizing that memoir is told through your own lens
• Chloe's experience sharing her memoir with her parents and siblings
• How writing helped create healing within her family
• The relationship between visibility and telling your truth
• Why you don't need an extraordinary or dramatic life to have a story worth telling
• Becoming the writer you may not yet believe yourself to be
Chloe also shares an important distinction for anyone considering memoir:
Your story is yours to tell through your lens.
Other people may remember the same events differently. That doesn't eliminate your experience or your right to tell your story.
For Chloe, the intention behind telling that truth matters. She approaches memoir with an intention toward healing rather than harm—even when the story contains difficult experiences.
Her own memoir demonstrates what can happen when we allow craft and emotional truth to work together.
And perhaps Chloe's most important message is for the person who has been quietly thinking:
I have a st
