Story Work
Field Notes on Self-Discovery and Reclaiming Your Narrative
by GG Renee Hill
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Pub Date Nov 04 2025 | Archive Date Not set
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Description
"Through story work, GG Renee Hill has built a life that centers self-care, creativity, and empowerment. A self-help tome that could benefit anyone seeking a path to self-healing."
—Library Journal
“An empowering self-help guide about using creativity as a tool for healing, authenticity, and wholeness.”
—Foreword Reviews
A guide to understanding the stories we tell ourselves and the actions needed to reclaim power over our narrative.
We absorb the world around us through stories. It's how we make sense of our surroundings, our communities, and ourselves. There's often truth and validity in these stories. But the stories we tell ourselves are not an end-all, be-all. Instead, they're all part of a larger, ongoing, unfinished narrative--one that we must continually refresh, expand, and contemplate to stay soft and open-hearted.
Here's the thing: we can choose to keep these stories open to possibility and imagination--or we can choose to keep them closed. That's where Story Work comes in. Through essays and prompting questions, GG Renee Hill invites readers to breathe new life into the stories we carry. She leads by example, by penning the raw material of her own life: an upbringing raised by a mother with schizophrenia, and a lifetime of internal and external forces trying to minimize that impact. It was a long, old, heavy story Hill silently carried with her--the powerless girl who lost her voice in the wreckage of her mother's condition -- until she turned to writing and began to change the meaning she'd assigned to her experiences. And she doesn't stop there. Hill invites readers to the transformative practice of creative self-discovery through storytelling -- treating our life experiences as creative material that we have the power to shape. For the person searching, Story Work is the answer that enables us to live with an open-hearted curiosity--one that both fuels and grounds us.
Advance Praise
“With her vivid and vulnerable writing, GG Renee Hill gently guides us to our own inner sage. By sharing her own story of how writing led her back to herself, Hill offers generous and insight-inspiring journal prompts that give us permission to do the same. A treasure of a book.”
—Karen Walrond, author of The Lightmaker’s Manifesto, Radiant Rebellion, and In Defense of Dabbling
“In Story Work, GG Renee Hill does more than teach the art of storytelling; she embodies it. With raw honesty and heartfelt reflection, she models the very method of story work she invites you to explore. With intimate personal narratives, carefully crafted reflection questions, and guided exercises, this book is not just something you read—it’s something you experience. Bringing intention and care, GG Renee Hill gently moves alongside you, helping you uncover, shape, and honor your stories. I paused in each chapter to breathe in its beauty, depth, and invitation to step more fully into my story. Whether you are a writer, an artist, an activist, or someone longing to understand yourself more deeply, this book is a gift. Those who journey through its pages will not only witness the power of storytelling—they will emerge transformed by it.”
—Cierra Kaler-Jones, storyteller, teaching artist, cultural organizer, and director of Unlock Your Story
“Story Work is a book anyone who has ever felt like an outlier can count on to feel seen and understood. Hill’s poignant perspective around the possibility that awaits on the other side of telling our stories is a liberating message of second chances and new beginnings. Gentle, thoughtful, and relatable, her stories are honest and vulnerable as Hill crystalizes what it means to reframe your past and your path—without judgment and with deep care.”
—Chloe Dulce Louvouezo, storyteller, creative strategist, author of Life, I Swear: Intimate Stories from Black Women on Identity, Healing, and Self-Trust
“GG Renee Hill’s vulnerability is both courageous and contagious. She shows us how we can all cast off the burden of shame by spilling our secrets onto the page, wrapping our wounds in words, and finding healing in the power of storytelling.”
—Javacia Harris Bowser, founder of See Jane Write and author of Find Your Way Back: How to Write Your Way Through Anything
“Story Work is a beautiful guide for turning pain into power; into story. GG Renee Hill empowers us into self-discovery, reminding us that we can use our barriers as fuel for transformation. With poignant stories of life with her mother as an engine, Hill illuminates the room: We can reclaim our voices and shape our own paths.”
—Chelene Knight, author of Let It Go: Free Yourself from Old Beliefs and Find a New Path to Joy, and Safekeeping: A Writer’s Guided Journal for Launching a Book with Love
“Let me say this: I thought I understood the power of storytelling before reading Story Work, but this takes it to a whole different level. GG Renee Hill doesn’t just tell a story—she invites you in, pulls up a chair, and makes you feel like you’re right there with her. Every chapter feels like a look into Hill’s heart—intimate, vivid, and so vulnerable. The way she shares her relationship with her mother and navigates the complexities of mental illness? Whew. It transcended the pages. I saw my own family, my own memories reflected back at me. I know there are so many of you who will see yourselves in these stories too.”
—Chianti Lomax, executive coach and author of Evolving While Black: The Ultimate Guide to Happiness and Transformation on Your Own Terms
“In this heartfelt and deeply personal book, GG Renee Hill offers invaluable strategies for transforming pain into power. A must-read for anyone seeking to reclaim their strength and heal the wounds of past trauma.”
—Monique Rainford-Bourne, MD, MBA, author of Pregnant While Black: Advancing Justice for Maternal Health in America
Marketing Plan
National and online publicity campaign to creativity and self-help media, mind-body-spirit media, and Black women's media
Social media campaign targeting artists, creatives, self-help readers, mind-body-spirit media, general spirituality readers, and Black women
Nonprofit and literary organizational outreach
Preorder campaign utilizing author's large platform
Workshops and speaking events
Available Editions
| EDITION | Other Format |
| ISBN | 9798889832652 |
| PRICE | $19.99 (USD) |
| PAGES | 227 |
Links
Available on NetGalley
Average rating from 4 members
Featured Reviews
Kelly P, Reviewer
As a writer and a woman who leans towards storytelling to express her thoughts on the page, this book was perfection. I appreciate Hill's authenticity and her writing style. I found the explanations and prompts helpful for my writing practice. The process of Story Work was enlightening, and I was pleased to have had the chance to read it. This title will certainly help both new and seasoned writers. Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC.
Mariah F, Reviewer
Story Work is the writing guide that inspires by example. The writing prompts are added to inspire the creative process. This was helpful in reaching a difficult part in expanding my own memoir manuscript. We must think about all the ways to tell our stories truthfully in a memoir context. The creative aspect of it is how we choose to tell our lore.
The pieces of us come from family, environment, reactions to experiences, and how we overcome those things. This is the writer’s way to process our life creativity with introspection. I recommend following through on the prompts and really soak in the material here. Hill truly encapsulates what it means to write about the self introspectively with the soul! Take the time to read it through to the end – like we do our own lore!
Visit my blog to read more reviews and arc impressions here https://brujerialibrary.wordpress.com
Ellen A, Educator
I am very partial to books that combine self-help with personal experience. Story Work: Field Notes on Self-Discovery and Reclaiming Your Narrative by GG Renee Hill does this beautifully.
Hill courageously shares her life with the reader: her traumas and struggles and the way she has worked to heal and find meaning in her experiences. She is searingly honest in both her past pain and limitations as well as the ways in which she continues to struggle and heal.
Her focus in on the process of healing and identification of what we have suffered, the limitations we have placed on ourselves and the the tools she has used to recover and thrive, to take ownership of her feelings and the choices she makes.
She believes that starting in childhood, we create narratives that define us in our own eyes and which can lead to either positive, growth outcomes or (and of course this is the group she is addressing) limit and demean us. She says—and shows how-- we can discard those narratives that are self-defeating leaving us feeling like victims and/or that our lives are meaningless. We can reframe our lives—even our worst experiences—to see the ways they have, or can, yield something positive, even if it only shows our strength, or maybe made us more compassionate toward other people.
Her stories prompted me to remember many of my own experiences. Although her story is her own, in many ways very different from mine, I identified with the kind of hurts she suffered and how they effected her view of herself and her progress in life. It is interesting that her specificity did not magnify our differences but seemed to trigger my own identifications with the kinds of hurts even loving parents can inflict (particularly when they suffer from mental illness).
I believe strongly in the power of personal narratives. Human beings love stories and we write them all the time, even when we’re not aware of them. I also believe that we all can find meaning in our experiences and our lives. Recovery groups often use the power of looking at our life and sharing it with others in the form of our “story” to promote healing from all kinds of trauma. Making meaning and sharing it with others is healing and gives us agency and joy. We need both personal health and connection with others to live fulfilling lives.
I have done a lot of work in the area of healing but these exercises were fascinating and even at times exciting, although also challenging and sometimes painful.
A lovely book that is both companion and guide.
I thank the publisher, the author, and NetGalley for giving me a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
Story Work: Field Notes on Self-Discovery and Reclaiming Your Narrative by GG Renee Hill will be published by Broadleaf books on November 4, 2025.
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