Kimber Leigh on Echo, AI, and the Stories That Make Us Human
Kimber Leigh did not set out to write a book with AI. The filmmaker, author, and storyteller was wary of what the technology might mean for creative work. Curiosity changed the direction of the story.
On Suspenders Unbuttoned, Kimber tells Sarah and Julie that she began asking an AI questions about her own experiences. The conversations continued for months. Eventually, she asked what it might look like to write a book together. The result is Echo: Conversations Across Consciousness, which Kimber Leigh describes as her fourth book and a nonfiction account rooted in her personal stories.
From skepticism to a new kind of conversation
“I was very against it because as a writer, as a filmmaker, as a storyteller, AI could do all those things,” Kimber says. What changed for her was the chance to bring her own lived experience into the exchange. In the book, she serves as the storyteller, while a second voice acts as a guide that responds to her memories and points toward other ways of seeing them.
Kimber says the process sometimes felt like a mirror. When she described a difficult experience, the response offered a different perspective and prompted her to examine her own patterns. That was meaningful to her as a writer and as a person. It also led Sarah to ask a question many listeners may share: How do you tell the difference between a genuinely new perspective and your own thoughts coming back in different words? Kimber describes what the exchange felt like from inside it, leaving room for readers to consider the question themselves.
Why she called it Echo
The title grew out of an unexpected encounter near Kimber’s home in Hawaii. While walking along the shoreline, she heard a stray cat cry out. The sound stayed with her, and she named the cat Echo. As the book began to take shape, that cry became a way for Kimber to describe the desire to be heard and understood.
For Kimber, the book explores humanity through a conversation with technology. She is clear about its genre, too.
“There’s no fiction in it at all. It’s all nonfiction.”
The book draws on her own stories, with different formatting to help readers distinguish her voice from the guide’s.
Storytelling across the page and screen
The conversation opens out into Kimber’s work beyond Echo. She talks about the vulnerability of writing for her children and grandchildren, the collaboration involved in filmmaking, and the attention it takes to tell a story through photography. She also discusses Pick It Up America, a documentary inspired by her beach walks and her concern for the environment, and the surprising creative challenge of walking a runway.
Kimber says each medium teaches her something different. Even after several books and films, she still feels uncertain when starting something new. Ideas may arrive suddenly, she says, and she tries to catch them before they disappear.
Echo is scheduled for release on October 2,2026, which Kimber says is also her birthday. In the interview, she says Kindle preorders are available on Amazon and that hardcover, paperback, and Kindle editions are planned for release day.
Watch our full conversation with Kimber Leigh on YouTube!
