Healing Story Alliance is a not-for-profit, educational, arts organization which provides online resources and concert, workshop, and community programming in support of storytelling as a healing art.
Description
Join us for the next event in the new Healing Story Alliance series where authors are interviewed about their creative writing processes and the healing power of storytelling. Storytelling, unique among all narrative arts, engages listeners in a profound way, deepening our understanding of what healing means and how it functions.
In this session, Elisa Pearmain will interview Susan Perrow about her book Stories to Light the Night
a collection of over 90 therapeutic stories designed to help children, families, and communities navigate grief, loss, and separation, covering topics like the death of a loved one, loss of a
pet, divorce, and environmental grief. Published in 2021, the book uses storytelling as a tool for healing, offering a diverse selection of tales from various cultures to provide comfort and help reframe
difficult experiences.
Audience participation is encouraged, with opportunities to ask questions and share observations inspired by Susan’s work and the interview. This event benefits The Healing Storytelling Alliance, dedicated to promoting healing through the art of storytelling.
About the Author
Susan Perrow, M.Ed.Hons is an Australian author who works with 'story medicine'. She writes, collects and documents stories that offer a therapeutic journey – a positive, imaginative way of addressing challenging behaviors and traumatic situations for all ages, including environmental grief and loss.
In 2000 she developed a 150-hour unit on Storytelling for Southern Cross University and completed her Masters Research on Storytelling in Cross-cultural Situations. From 2001 to 2003, as the coordinator of a pilot program funded by the Australian Government under its “Developing Stronger Families” Project, she developed courses and resources for Parent Support, specializing in therapeutic storytelling.
For the past 20 years she has travelled internationally giving keynotes and therapeutic story-writing seminars for teachers, therapists and parents world-wide, and now runs trainings online.
Her work has led to the publication of four resource books, all by Hawthorn Press U.K., and now in 14 languages - ‘Healing Stories for Challenging Behavior’, ‘Therapeutic Storytelling: 101 Healing Stories for Children’, ‘An A-Z Collection of Behavior Tales’ and ‘Stories to Light the Night: A Grief and Loss Collection for Children, Families and Communities’.
In 2023 she launched her first audio APP for smartphones and tablets. Entitled ‘Rainbowtales. app’ it offers 101 therapeutic stories told by professional narrators across six categories.
A mother of three sons, and a grandmother of six, her home is in Lennox Head on the East Coast of Australia. Websites: www.susanperrow.com / https://rainbowtales.app/
About the Interviewer
Elisa Pearmain has been telling stories professionally since 1987, and always with a penchant for the many healing benefits of story. She is the award-winning author of 52 Wisdom Tales from Around the World, Once Upon a Time: Storytelling to Teach Character and Prevent Bullying, and the double CD Forgiveness: Telling Our Stories in New Ways. Elisa is also a Psychotherapist in private practice, is on the Advisory Board of the Healing Story Alliance and is chair of the HSA Programming Committee.
Date & Time
Sun, Apr 26, 2026 7:00 PM - 8:30 PM