5: Writing Your Difficult Stories with Lea Turner

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Shonda Ramsey interviews Lea Turner, a first-time author whose book, "The Freedom to Feel," addresses grief and trauma. Lea shares her personal experiences, including her father's death, her mother's cancer, a house fire, and her oldest son's addiction. She emphasizes the importance of vulnerability and community in overcoming pain. Lea discusses the challenges of writing such a personal book, including grieving while writing and editing. She advises aspiring authors to write their hard stories and build a supportive community. Lea also highlights the role of faith in her healing journey and her future plans, including becoming a grief coach and supporting other writers.
Action Items:
Connect with Lea on Instagram: www.instagram.com/leajturner
Visit Lea's Website: www.leaturner.com
Buy Lea's Book: Amazon
Are you looking for a writing community? Join the November to New Year: Novel Writing with Authentically Created a free three month workshop. Learn more at www.authenticallycreated.com
Lea's Bio:
Lea Turner is a heartfelt, empathetic writer and speaker who longs to meet and encourage us in our pain. Joyfully broken through three years of her family struggling with trauma and loss, including death, cancer, losing everything to a house fire, drug addiction, loss of a dream, and heart surgery, has made her a reluctant expert on grief. Lea is a soulful listener and wisdom seeker passionate about walking with grieving people through trauma, pain, and loss. She lives in Mississippi with her husband and five kids, making her a northern girl stuck in a southern world.
We long to make sense of the suffering. A diagnosis. A death. Traumatic loss. A wandering child. Unending loneliness. Divorce. Unexpected job loss. Unfilled dreams and desires. But what if we didn't try to make sense of it? What if we went beyond asking why and instead saw pain and suffering as an invitation to more of God and allowed ourselves to feel?
In her book, Lea encourages readers to view pain and suffering as an invitation to connect with God rather than a problem to be solved. She shares her own journey of grief, revealing that there is no formula for coping with loss but rather an opportunity to embrace emotions and find comfort in a God who understands.
"The Freedom to Feel" is not a how-to guide on suffering but rather a comforting companion for those who are grieving. The book gently guides readers to embrace their pain with kindness, express their feelings to God, find hope in His promises, and learn to hold space for each other's pain and suffering. This book is for grieving people and those who long to support them better.
Lea's Letter to You:
Dear Indie Author, I know it can feel as if your words aren’t being heard and they're not helping others, but they are. Your job is to be obedient to God’s leading. You have a value to add to the world. But what I wish someone had told me was being an author is hard work. We must obey the command of the work, knowing it takes long hours to write and sometimes you have to start over but keep going. Rejection is a part of the work. You will be rejected, and this is why it is so very important to have a community of authors and writers around you for support. Over the last two years of writing and marketing my first book, I have had some incredible women come alongside me. When I’m feeling down, I text them, and I always receive some kind of encouragement. Community is important in this joinery. Don’t do it alone. And one last thing: build your audience one reader at a time. Invest in them as you would want