Audrey is a fictional character who resembles her author, Gail Marlene Schwartz. They both suffer from anxiety. They have both lost friends to suicide when they were young. And they are both queer women constructing the families they dream of, with the nuanced questions that implies. In writing the book, what did Gail rely on from her own experience? Did writing it contribute to a better understanding of herself? And what does she hope readers will learn from the story?

When the unimaginable happens, each of us enters our own grief language, unique to our deepest selves. When Mike Bernhardt's wife died in 1991, poetry (both writing and reading it) connected him to his own pain and, over time, healing. As time went forward, he wanted to share the gift of poetry with other grievers and began collecting poems that spoke to him, resulting in a compilation; Voices of the Heart. 30 years later, during COVID, Mike is re-releasing the collection, adding poetry that illuminates his evolution since and also speaks to the tremendous level of grief going on as a result of the pandemic.

Grief touches us at the outer reaches of our experience, challenging us to respond to new and unfamiliar terrain in our own souls. Finding rituals and pathways to carry us through the mysterious territory of loss encourages new ways to look at life and at ourselves. When we encounter a seasoned guide to walk with us through the unfamiliar terrain, grief can become a journey full of meaning. Francis Weller is such a guide, gently encouraging us towards new territory and integrating many Western and Indigenous traditions to help along the way. What supports us as grievers? What matters to us? What are the many ways to walk this road? And what is awaiting us when we have made room for this deepest of human experiences? These questions are the work of a lifetime. Join us to explore, to discover and to ask what we can do to love ourselves through loss.