How can we start planning for our 100% mortality rate? Death educator Gail Rubin, Certified Thanatologist, starts those conversations with a weekly podcast titled The Doyenne of Death®. The series tackles end-of-life issues with a light touch on a dark subject.
A Doyenne is a woman considered senior in a group who knows a lot about a particular subject. Gail Rubin is an award-winning author, speaker, and pioneer of outside-the-box activities to help people discuss death and funeral planning. She started in 2010 with the publication of her first death education book, A Good Goodbye: Funeral Planning for Those Who Don’t Plan to Die.
Rubin’s motto is “Talking about sex won’t make you pregnant, talking about funerals won’t make you dead.” A pioneer of the Death Cafe movement and Before I Die Festivals in the United States, she uses humor and film clips in her presentations.
She offers practical insights into the party no one wants to plan. By discussing end-of-life issues BEFORE there’s a death, families can reduce stress, minimize conflict, save money, and have a meaningful, memorable “good goodbye.” Episodes cover green burial, cremation, religious funeral traditions, grief impacts, Near Death Experiences, and other topics.
In 2013, Gail Rubin hosted a live online broadcast, A Good Goodbye. The weekly one-hour Internet radio show was made into podcasts, long before the popularity of today’s programs. Evergreen episodes are being reissued as two-part podcasts titled The Doyenne of Death®. The new versions accommodate today’s shorter attention spans and time availability. New interviews will be recorded as well.
Subscribe and listen to The Doyenne of Death® wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes will be released every Thursday.
Gail Rubin is also the author of Kicking the Bucket List: 100 Downsizing and Organizing Things to Do Before You Die and Hail and Farewell: Cremation Ceremonies, Templates and Tips. Her Before I Die Festival in a Box® manual and tools for holding your own local Festival is slated for release in Fall 2022. A free end-of-life planning form and 50-point Executor’s Checklist is available online at www.AGoodGoodbye.com.
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