“What perhaps characterizes this volume more than most peer-reviewed scholarly collections is its poetic and analytic quality; the chapters not only offer uplifting responses, but also invite the reader to ask more meaningful questions about loss and learning. ” (p. 3)
This is our latest edited book on grieving death and non-death losses — a wonderful collaboration with friends and colleagues Katrin Den Elzen and Robert Neimeyer as editors and our many esteemed colleagues from around the world.
It includes two chapters by Athabasca instructor Dr. Linita Eapen Mathew who is teaching MAIS 662: Mourning and Trauma with me this semester for the Master of Arts Interdisciplinary Studies program.
Other Canadian authors include MAIS graduate Jennifer Bertrand, and scholars Maite Snauwaert, Carrie Arnold, Iris J. Gildea and Darcy Harris.
Topics include dealing with chronic illness, healing in the face of an alcoholic parent, feeling the presence of deceased beloveds, non-western cultural rituals that can support grieving, elegy writing as a therapeutic strategy, and loneliness in literary grief memoirs, as well as post-traumatic growth in widowhood, compassion-focused grief therapy, navigating the complexities of bereaved families, and a research study into writing for wellbeing.
NEWS: In addition to the areas covered in this book, I’m currently working with Dr. Bob Fecho and Florene Ypma on a new book about a different kind of loss; it’s called “Good Divorces”. All our chapter authors have been chosen for this project and we are now focused on finding a publisher for this new volume that will serve both academic and general audiences.
We’ll speak to this topic as part of a grief retreat hosted by the Portland Institute for Loss and Transition in the summer of 2025 in Bainbridge, Washington. More to follow…