Three Highlanders are sharing their journeys toward living authentically in an upcoming short story anthology.

Melissa Tong, Amanda Lytle and Andrea Salvatori will be featured in She Lives Her Truth: a collection of stories and lessons from resilient women on their journey towards trusting their inner knowing.

Lytle, who hosts Safe Haven podcast in Minden, is the lead author of the book, published by GCW Publishing House. Lytle brought together 13 women from across Canada to share stories of inner growth.

Lytle was an author in a previous book, She Moves Mountains, and said she found the process of sharing her story “empowering.”

In She Lives her Truth, Lytle wrote about her journey learning about co-dependency.

“It has had me feeling super exposed, super vulnerable. It’s kind of like practice what I preach,” she said.

Being able to gather women together to write about their lives and lessons learned, said Lytle, is an extension of her passion for fostering community.

“I love genuine heart-to-heart connection,” she said.

Tong said throughout her life “there a was consistent theme of not fitting in and living to my truth: who I am authentically.”

Her story is about growing up as the “black sheep” in her family, realizing she can be who she wants to be, not who her family or society expect her to be.

“I think it’s really powerful to share our stories authentically,” said Tong. “We’ve gotten away from storytelling as a culture.”

She said being published has been a longtime goal.

“I never read a book in high school. I struggled with English [class] and writing essays. To be able to write 4,000 words and articulate my story is a huge accomplishment in itself.”

Salvatori said she struggled to know what to write about at first. She decided to dive into her past.

“It was kind of a very hard time in my life I had already gone through and processed,” she said.

Salvatori said she hasn’t quite processed what it means for personal experiences to be out in public.

For her, living her truth means “to listen to those gut feelings. To listen to and also have the courage and drive to follow through.”

For copies of She Lives Her Truth, contact Melissa Tong (melissa.tong@icloud.com) or Andrea Salvatori (andrea.salvatori@live.ca)