Author & Celebrity Interviews
Bob Woodruff on How His Near-Death Experience Changed His Life
In 2006, while in Iraq covering the U.S transfer of power to Iraqi security forces for ABC News, Bob Woodruff suffered a life-threatening brain injury. His armored vehicle was hit by a roadside bomb. In that one moment, Bob’s life, and the lives of his wife and four children, were changed forever. He was transferred to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center and spent 36 days in a medically-induced coma. And while he recovered, relearning…
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Modern Loss Cofounder Rebecca Soffer Shares Stories From Her Post-loss Life
After losing both of her parents, Rebecca Soffer started having monthly dinner parties with a group she named WWDP (Women With Dead Parents). These raw and often irreverent gatherings eventually became Modern Loss, a vibrant community that offers support and validation via blog posts, advice columns, and events. Its most enthusiastic supporters now have the opportunity to become Patreon members, receiving access to exclusive benefits.
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Judith Warner Shares Memories of Her Dear Friend, Gone Too Soon
Judith Warner is a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress and a frequent contributing writer for The New York Times. Her latest piece, “The War Between Middle Schoolers and Their Parents Ends Now,” shares how the coronavirus lockdown is an opportunity for a reset with your children. She and I met in 2011 when she did a book talk for We’ve Got Issues: Children and Parents in the Age of Medication, which followed her best-seller,…
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Before Covid-19, General Martin Dempsey Remembers Soldiers Who Died
General Martin Dempsey, the 18th Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, keeps a special walnut box on his desk at home. It is full of photographs of soldiers who died under his command in Iraq. General Dempsey says the box is a tangible reminder of each life that was lost, and the pictures push him to always consider what’s really important. A few years ago, I was honored to meet General Dempsey as part…
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New York Times Bestselling Author Peggy Orenstein on Whether Grief Ever Goes Away
is out with her latest book, Boys & Sex, an analysis of young men and their views on relationships, porn, love, and consent. The book is a follow-up to her New York Times best seller Girls & Sex. And because Orenstein is still on tour promoting her book, I was thrilled she agreed to sit down with me to reveal her thoughts about a much different, equally intimate topic: the death of her mother. During…
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New York Times Bestselling Author Laurie Halse Anderson Reveals the Lessons Grief Teaches Us
In her memoir, Shout, New York Times bestselling author Laurie Halse Anderson turns away from her career as one of America’s most acclaimed authors of historical fiction and writes about being raped when she was 13. The experience transformed her adolescence and framed her emotional life well into adulthood. I’ve known Laurie for a while now. We both went to Georgetown University, and since we met, I’ve always been impressed by her wit and generosity. I’m…
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How Lee Woodruff’s “Ambiguous Loss” Became a Mission to Help Others
Lee Woodruff and I got know each other through several shared passions – giving voice to the complexity of grief, building resilience in the face of adversity, and supporting veterans and their families in whatever way we can. For me, I became interested after the loss of my parents. Lee’s attention was sparked in 2006 when her husband Bob Woodruff suffered a traumatic brain injury. The celebrated journalist was in Iraq covering the war for…
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Author KJ Dell’Antonia Opens Up About Her Struggles with Loss and How She’s Learned to Savor the “Dumb Ordinary Good Stuff”
I’ve had a girl crush on author KJ Dell’Antonia for a few years now. The first time I came across her work was when she wrote and edited the New York Times Motherlode blog. After that, I read her book How to Be a Happier Parent: Raising a Family, Having a Life, and Loving (Almost) Every Minute and then began listening to #AmWriting, the insightful podcast she hosts with fellow author Jessica Lahey. So it was…
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Author Susan Orlean on Giving Herself Permission to Repurpose Her Mother’s Jewelry
Author Susan Orlean is popping up everywhere these days: the New York Times Book Review has featured her latest work, The Library Book, and she was Pamela Paul’s guest on The Book Review podcast. She was also given a well-deserved spotlight in The Washington Post, USA TODAY, and The National Book Review. And of course, she remains a staff writer at The New Yorker, a role she’s held since 1992. Because of her hectic schedule, I…
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Kathryn Harrison on the Loss of Her Grandparents and How a Figurine and Louis Vuitton Luggage Keep Their Memory Alive
New York Times bestselling author Kathryn Harrison was raised by her maternal grandparents. The tragic relationship she endured with her parents was heartbreakingly chronicled in her memoir, The Kiss (about her father’s sexual abuse), and her collection of essays, Seeking Rapture: Scenes From a Woman’s Life (various stories, including recollections of her mother’s anger and absence). Kathryn’s grandparents died decades ago, and in her latest book, On Sunset: A Memoir, she recalls her unusual childhood…
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How Orange is the New Black’s Alysia Reiner Uses Her Star Power to Honor Her Father’s Memory
What a thrill for me to feature actress Alysia Reiner in this Q & A! You no doubt know Alysia from her role as “Fig” in Orange is the New Black. She also stars in the movie Egg, alongside her husband David Alan Basche (The Blacklist, NCIS), Christina Hendricks (Mad Men), and Anna Camp (Pitch Perfect). During our talk, Alysia revealed that her decision to sign on as one of the film’s producers was prompted, at…
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Artist Emily McDowell Reveals the Deeply Personal Reasons She Launched Her Empathy Cards Collection, What Spurred Her Relationship With Sheryl Sandberg’s Option B Team, and the One Memento That Reminds Her Most of a Very Dear Friend
Pinch me! I am super excited to share my latest Q&A with you – a conversation with the incomparable Emily McDowell. Don’t know her name? I can nearly guarantee you know her artwork – fun, whimsical, and often sassy and irreverent. Slate named her Empathy Cards, a line of greeting cards crafted to help family and friends connect around illness and loss, one of the top designs making the world a better place. And no,…
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Claire Bidwell Smith Shares the Everyday Ways She Honors Her Parents
Claire Bidwell Smith is an author and grief therapist based in California. Her latest book, Anxiety: The Missing Stage of Grief, is an important exploration of how grief and anxiety are so commonly intertwined. Claire approaches each chapter from a raw, intimate vantage point: her parents were each diagnosed with cancer when she was 14, and by the time she was 25, they were both gone. Along the way and later, she developed severe, life-altering…
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Author and Poet Meghan O’Rourke on Living Life in Honor of Her Mother
Award-winning author, editor, literary critic, and poet Meghan O’Rourke‘s work has appeared in Slate, The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, The New York Times Book Review, and many other publications. While pursuing her extraordinary career, O’Rourke was faced with traveling back and forth from home to care for her mother, who died at age 55 of metastatic colorectal cancer. My mother also died young (57), and also from cancer (ovarian). And similar to Meghan, I was a journalist (working…
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Jon Stewart on Grief, Resilience, and Supporting Those Who Serve Others
Jon Stewart’s father passed away several years ago. But the former The Daily Show host’s personal experience with loss is not what prompted our discussion for my grief & resilience blog. Jon and I were in Arlington, Virginia to join Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient and founder of TAPS, Bonnie Carroll, for the launch of the TAPS Institute for Hope and Healing. Also with us were authors Hope Edelman, Claire Bidwell Smith, and Rebecca Soffer. Read…
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Joyce Maynard on Losing Her Husband and How Grief Has Made Her More Resilient
New York Times bestselling author Joyce Maynard lost her husband in 2016. Their love affair was rapturous. Yet shortly after their one-year wedding anniversary, Jim was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. He died 19 months later. Joyce captures this emotional upheaval in her latest book, The Best of Us, a work she dove into the night Jim died. In our interview, Joyce reveals how she celebrates and honors Jim’s memory and how grief has made her…
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Rachel Thomas, President of LeanIn.Org and OptionB.Org, Discusses Sheryl Sandberg, Helping Grieving Friends During the Holidays, and #OptionBThere
What an honor it is for me to feature this conversation with Rachel Thomas, President of LeanIn.Org and OptionB.Org. Rachel works side by side with Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg on these two groundbreaking, sweeping initiatives. Ever since I heard about OptionB (the online community) and Option B (the book, co-written by Sandberg with bestselling author and psychologist Adam Grant), I’ve been awestruck by Sandberg’s indefatigable commitment to empower and lift individuals up. In particular, I’m…
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Julia Scheeres on the Loss of Her Brother and the Healing Power of One Very Special Stuffed Animal
November 18 marks the anniversary of the Jonestown Massacre. In 1978, Jim Jones orchestrated the deaths of more than 900 people, all Americans. The individuals who built Jonestown, the Peoples Temple settlement in Guyana, went to South America in search of a better life. But over time they were held against their will as Jones urged them to commit “revolutionary suicide.” He denied them access to the outside world and eventually, food, sleep, and any dream…
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Dani Shapiro on Loss, Religion, and Honoring Her Father Through Writing
As I sit down to write this blog, it’s odd for me to admit that I don’t remember when I met Dani Shapiro. I just know I’ve admired her work for a very long time. Her writing is provocative and elegant. There are few authors I admire more. Dani is the bestselling author of numerous books, including Still Writing, Devotion, and Slow Motion. She’s been a guest on Oprah Winfrey’s Super Soul Sunday. Her most recent…
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Robin Romm Discusses the Loss of Her Mother and How Writing and Having a Baby Keeps Her Memory Alive
I’ve had a writer’s crush on Robin Romm ever since I read her scorching memoir, The Mercy Papers. The book is about the last three weeks of her mother’s life. It is unsentimental and raw, ricocheting furiously between anger, sadness, love, and humor. I’m always asked to recommend books on mother loss. The Mercy Papers continually tops my list. Robin has just published another work and it’s altogether different. It’s called Double Bind: Women on…
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