Writing and storytelling are powerful tools for processing and healing from trauma. Words have allowed me to share my story, as well as to help others to share and move through their own experiences. I’m a best-selling author and co-author, a writing and publishing coach and a manuscript evaluator and editor. I focus on memoirs of ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances who achieve post-traumatic growth, forgiveness, advocacy and societal change.
Heal for Real: A guided journal to forgiving others—and yourself
(Page Two, 2022)
Informed by my work providing individual therapy and facilitating forgiveness retreats and workshops across a wide spectrum of settings—from large city conferences, to tiny fly-in Arctic communities—Heal For Real walks you through a proven curriculum that has helped thousands to make peace with the past.
Through hands-on activities, reflections and inspirational stories and quotes, you’ll learn how to define what forgiveness means (and doesn't mean) to you, as well as practical strategies that will help you offer and receive it. Along the way, you'll also gain insight from the forgiveness journeys of incredible people.
Above all, you'll be supported in a highly personal, individualized journey of healing. Whether what happened was Big T trauma or little t trauma, whether you were hurt or did the hurting, Heal For Real will guide you to understand and bring forgiveness into your life—in a way that's right for you.
*Get in touch for bulk orders. Also available in Spanish as Mejor-Ando: Un diario guiado para perdonar a otros—y perdonarte a ti.
Did you know that I speak Spanish?
¿Sabías que hablo español?
Listen to a forgiveness meditation here.
If you’re interested in writing your own story as a way to process your trauma, my Write for Real program might be for you. Memoir writing can be a tremendous tool for healing, plus telling your story may help others to know they aren't alone. Get in touch to learn more about hiring me as your writing coach, for details about Write for Real and to book a consultation. I can also provide details about my success rate for helping clients get published.
Through the Glass
(Doubleday Canada, 2011; Simon & Schuster USA, UK and worldwide, 2012)
This book tells the story of my before and after. In October 2005, I had no idea that my happy life as a newlywed was about to come crashing down around me. One month after my wedding, a police officer arrived at my door to tell me that my husband, Jason, had called 911 and confessed to having kidnapped and brutally assaulted two women. He was arrested, held in prison and set to be tried as a Dangerous Offender-–Canada's highest sentence.
In the aftermath of these crimes, I grappled with a heavy burden of grief, the stress and publicity of a major criminal investigation and the painful stigma of guilt-by-association, all while attempting to understand what had made Jason turn to such violence.
“Through the Glass is an impassioned, harrowing and ultimately hopeful story of one woman's pursuit of justice, forgiveness and healing. In this intimate and gripping journey into prisons, courtrooms and the human heart, Shannon reveals the far-reaching impact of Jason's crimes, the agonizing choices faced by the loved ones of offenders, and the implicit dangers of a correctional system and a society that prioritizes punishment over rehabilitation, and victimhood over recovery.”
Listen to the first chapter of Through the Glass here.
Out of the Shadows: A Memoir
by Timea Nagy and Shannon Moroney (Doubleday Canada, 2019)
Timea Nagy was twenty years old when she answered a newspaper ad in Budapest, Hungary, calling for young women to work as housekeepers and babysitters in Canada. Interviewed and hired by what seemed like a legitimate recruitment agency, Timea left her home on the promise she would earn good money to send home to her family. What she didn’t know was that she’d been lured by a ring of international human traffickers—and her life would never again be the same.
Upon her arrival in Toronto, she was forced into sex labour in some of the city’s seediest nightclubs, starved and controlled by her agents, and brainwashed to believe she was to blame for her situation. The only way she’d be free was when her debt was paid—but, no matter how hard she worked, that debt seemed only to go up, not down.
Out of the Shadows is a gripping, heartbreaking and eye-opening journey deep into the underworld of human trafficking and the sex trade, told in riveting detail by one brave survivor. At once tragic and powerfully redemptive, Timea Nagy’s story is one that will stay with you long after you’ve read the last page.