Gail Rubin,The Doyenne of Death™,is a Certified Celebrant,a Life Tribute professional personally trained by Doug Manning and Glenda Stansbury of the In-Sight Institute,the leading U.S. organization that trains Celebrants. Gail is also a public relations professional,event planner,and speaker. She has more than 30 years of experience creating many memorable life cycle events.
As the author of “Matchings,Hatchings and Dispatchings,” an Albuquerque Tribune column on life cycle events,she found that the columns on death elicited the greatest reader response,indicating a pressing need for information on the topic. She started The Family Plot Blog (http://thefamilyplot.wordpress.com),a chipper online resource to provide the information,inspiration and tools to pre-plan a healing and meaningful funeral or memorial service.
Her award-winning book,A Good Goodbye:Funeral Planning for Those Who Don’t Plan to Die,provides everything you never knew you needed to know about funeral planning and brings light to a dark subject. The book was awarded Best of Show in the 2011 New Mexico Book Awards and was a finalist in the Family &Relationships category of the 2010 Book of the Year Award from ForeWord Reviews.
Rubin has spoken at,planned,and attended hundreds of funerals and memorial services. She annually conducts her “30 Funerals in 30 Days Challenge”where she attends and blogs about each memorial service at The Family Plot Blog.
She has made behind-the-scenes visits to mortuaries and the Office of the Medical Investigator,and takes continuing education courses on death,grief,and the afterlife. She is a member of the Association for Death Education and Counseling and the International Cemetery,Cremation and Funeral Association. She volunteers with the Chevra Kaddisha,a group that ritually prepares the bodies of Jews for burial,and she serves on the cemetery committee for her synagogue.
Rubin is a breast cancer survivor who began her cancer journey in the summer of 2008. She observes,“Nothing reminds you of your own mortality more than a brush with something as serious and transforming as cancer.”
In addition to her Tribune column,articles by Rubin have appeared in New Mexico Magazine,Albuquerque The Magazine,The Albuquerque Journal,Enchantment,Catholic Digest,ICCFA Magazine,Momentum Magazine,The New Mexico Jewish Link,the Jewish Telegraphic Agency,Prime Time,and other publications.
