Multi-author reading examines writing through grief

Elizabeth Coplan, along with several other contributing authors, will visit Eagle Harbor Book Company at 7 p.m. Thursday, March 14 to read from the multi-author collection “Grief Dialogues The Book: Stories on Love and Loss.”

Sharon Stanley will open the topic of writing through grief. Food, wine, and non-alcoholic beverages will be available.

The book harnesses the power of words to give an unobstructed view of grief. Personal accounts of love and loss craft a collection of individual stories by more 60 authors which take readers into the innermost lives of everyday people dealing with dying, death and grief.

From Vanessa Poster’s poem “We Danced,” portraying the inevitable interconnection of happy and sad memories, to Ann Lovejoy’s essay “When Death Comes,” where she shares the elegance of her mother’s death with the simple statement “I think she just died but I’m not sure,” to Emma Goldman Sherman’s play “Super-Death!” in which a gravely ill twin brother uses his superpowers in an attempt to make his death OK for his brother. Throw in some practical suggestions from Elizabeth Coplan and the research findings of Dr. Jeanne Broadbent on the impact of traumatic bereavement on therapists’ personal and professional identity and practice, and you have “Grief Dialogues The Book.”

Readers at the event will include Bainbridge Island residents Jenny Coates, Ann Lovejoy, Florrie Munat and Susan Johnson, plus Gig Harbor resident Mike Cordley, Paul Boardman from Seattle and Gwen Goodkin from California.

Coplan is a published essayist and a playwright. Her play productions include “Hospice: A Love Story” (six-week run in Los Angeles) and her post-election play “Something Wicked” (about Seattle on Inauguration Night in 2016).

Her full-length play “Hospice” debuted in 2017, and “Grief Dialogues: The Play” opened the Seattle Death Salon in September 2017. In June 2018, the play was performed in the Seattle area to sold-out performances. The play, or a portion of the play, appeared in New York, Las Vegas, Portland, Pittsburgh, and Memphis.

Visit www.eagleharborbooks.com to learn more.