Seekers, Sinners & Me #author Kirsten McHugh

Seekers, Sinners & Me: Walking, love and gratitude

'To have Jack determinedly walking with me was his precious gift.
I had heard other pilgrims talking of the transformative powers of
the Camino. God knows, I could do with some transformation,
but I didn't dare hope for anything so fancy. All I cared about
was having this chance to reconnect with my beloved Jack.'

A compelling, lyrical and life-affirming memoir about
love and gratitude.

In the shadow of a cancer diagnosis, Kirsten and Jack pause their
busy lives to walk the Camino de Santiago in Spain.

Passing through remote villages and stirring landscapes, they
rediscover a deeper connection with each other.

In Seekers, Sinners & Me, Kirsten McHugh shares memories of
their lives together, while immersing readers in the people, history
and places of the Camino.

With warmth, honesty and humour, Kirsten inspires us to make
the time to stop and reflect and perhaps discover a new direction
in our own lives.

Author Kirsten McHugh combines an engaging travel memoir with a deeply personal story of marriage, family and resilience. Richly woven throughout the narrative are the fascinating history, legends and spiritual traditions of the Camino itself.

To connect with Kirsten ...
https://www.instagram.com/mchugh.kirsten/ 

Transcript

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SPEAKER_00 0:02

Kirsten McHugh, welcome to Yellow Shelf. Thank you so much for having me.

SPEAKER_01 0:07

Oh, my pleasure. You're an author. Your book is available now. How could I not have you on Yellow Shelf? Congratulations. It's called Seekers, Sinners, and Me. Tell us all about the book.

SPEAKER_00 0:20

The book is ostensibly the story of the Camino, the walk that my husband and I did back in 2017. But it also intersperses stories of our life, the way we got together, our marriage, the stresses and strains that came to bear on our relationship when we started a number of pretty demanding projects on the south coast of New South Wales, opened a business, followed various harebrain schemes down various rabbit holes, and inevitably ended up in the usual complexities and stresses and pressures of a life that you build together and oftentimes business that we were building together as well. So we ended up in a in a pretty stressful situation with a lot of pressure and ran away from our real lives at the end of 2017 or in the second half of 2017 and walked the Camino. So the book is that story, but it's also the story of what brought us to the Camino and then what happened when we came back. A lot of that has to do with some pretty serious health issues that we were also dealing with. Jack had cancer in 2010, then again in 2017, and ultimately when we returned to Australia. So they're the the add that that's the substrate of the story as well. On the top, it's a Camino story, and there's uh a lot to enjoy about that story. There's so many interesting people that we meet along the way, lots of funny things that happen and adventures that we have. But underneath it all is uh another story, the story of um someone, a couple learning to live with um a sense of mortality and limitation that comes to bear because of the illness.

SPEAKER_01 2:16

Yeah. And Kirsten, you know, this book explores like faith as well as identity, the relationships, the complexities, the curveballs of life. I think everyone in their own way 100% can relate to that, whatever, whatever their experience is. But I guess, yeah, I mean, look, I'm someone who wants to walk the Camino one day. I feel like I selfishly want to do it for me. Um, and yeah, it was just a really delight to read. I just I, you know, there were aspects of your life that, yeah, your journey took me through. I may not have experienced those, but I, you know, what I and many others reading this will have experienced is just curveballs and that that messy life that we can live, even though we're trying our best.

SPEAKER_00 3:09

Absolutely. Life is hard, you know. Life is being a human's really difficult, and um, and life is hard, it's hard yakka. Yeah, and um, and it's I think really natural to feel attracted to something that you suspect is going to offer you a sense of escape and release from that difficulty for a for a limited time, perhaps, but but I think we all um can romanticize that idea, how what a sense of release that will be, and how wonderful to be able to have that opportunity, and we can really appetise that. That was certainly my story too. I I had um heard about the Camino, I'd read a bit about it. I think everyone's seen that movie, and um so I had um absorbed a lot of information about it and really was attracted to it and thought, wow, what a wonderful opportunity, and wished and hoped and uh thought maybe someday I'll have the opportunity to do it. And then we did, and and it was every bit as thrilling and um uh rewarding and stimulating as I had hoped and suspected it might be. But but it doesn't have to be the Camino. I mean people will people there'll there'll be all sorts of other opportunities that people may have, yeah, but just that sense of escape from your normal the normal difficulty um that we all have to grapple with in life.

SPEAKER_01 4:52

Yeah. Um and let's not give away too much because we want people to go and read the book. I I just thoroughly enjoyed uh yeah hearing about your story and yeah, that that piece of relating to what I could. Um do you want to talk to us a bit about you as an author, what that journey was like, and what inspired you to, you know, you you had done all these wonderful things, faced lots of things, then then becoming a writer. Do you want to share a bit about that?

SPEAKER_00 5:22

Well, it's that is a really long journey. I I when I was a a little kid, I thought I'd be a I thought I would be an author. That was what I thought I would do. So when I was a five-year-old, as soon as I realized I loved books, I loved reading, I was one of those kids that always had their head in a book. Yeah. And as soon as I realized that being a writer was a thing, that was a thing I wanted to do. And so I kept being stunned that my life kept serving up all these different um highways and byways, and none of them really was being a writer. So maybe that was a true a good thing because it gave me a lot of really interesting life experiences and a sense of learning a whole lot of different things. And I think maybe that's actually been of a lot of been of benefit because I think um now I can um draw on all of that crazy life experience and add it into certainly this book and um and hopefully others. But um, yeah, it's been a long haul. Uh so I feel like this is as a force a first-time author, it's very exciting for me to um have achieved something that I really did want to uh achieve at some stage.

SPEAKER_01 6:41

Yeah. Well, you know, any future work, I would love to have you back to support. I mean, I think, yeah, it's really fascinating. Or I love that question for a first-time author of their journey and what you know that's like. And thank you so much for sharing that. Kirsten, what happens from here? If we're listening anywhere in the world, we're curious about your memoir, your story, your journey, curious about you. How do we learn more? Do you want to point us in the direction of maybe even where we can get the book?

SPEAKER_00 7:13

Sure. The book is available, uh, the ebooks are available on Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Uh, the physical book is available uh in Australia, I suppose, practically um from Booktopia. Uh my website will have um a bit more information about me and the book, and that's www.kirstenmakue.com.au. Um I do have Facebook, I'm Kirsten McHugh on Facebook, I'm McQue.kirsten on Instagram. I'm not going to pretend to be a social media maven, but certainly there's bits and pieces on social media.

SPEAKER_01 7:50

Awesome. Well, look, I'll put in the website, I'll put in some links to make it easy. I mean, I know this audience really loves connecting and supporting, so I'll put some links in. It has been a delight to to meet you after reading the book. I'd love you to come back any future work. Um, thank you so much for joining us at Yellow Shelf.

SPEAKER_00 8:10

Thank you. Great to chat. Really love the opportunity and lovely to meet you. And thanks so much for that. Cheers.