SERIOUS REPORTING ON DEATH
AND LIFE IN THE MEANTIME
From the Editors
Chat, what’s good? Team GraveSite is feeling pretty fired up after our first digital live event, so this third and final (!) prelaunch newsletter is dedicated to all-things HellFireside Chat, feat. our fabulous new columnists.
Join us tomorrow for a book club kickoff with award-winning novelist and playwright Molly Horan, who’s curated the rangiest inaugural reading list for bookworms of all ages. (Seriously, she said the picture books were the easiest to source.)
Then read on for the debut ‘Dear Reaper’ advice column from author and death-ops doyenne Becky Robison. (And yes, there’s a chat for that, too.)
Thanks for being here. There’s no one we’d rather be spending the waning days of summer and GraveSite pre-launch with.
Yours in yapping,
Delaney
P.S. If you’re looking for ways to support us in this homestretch (thank you!), give us a follow on our socials (links are in the footer of this email), encourage a death-curious friend to subscribe, or become a founding member.
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Introducing the ‘Read in Peace’
Book Club
Welcome to ‘Read in Peace’, a monthly column and online book club.
Death, grief, and intervening life can’t fit into a neat box, and neither can their stories. So each month, we’re bringing you an author-curated reading list of the best books on a death matter of great import. Whether you’re into gravity or gallows humor, searching for yourself or a precocious death-curious kid, we’ve got you covered.
August’s Theme: Memento Mori
Below are a few books Editor-in-Chief Delaney Rebernik will be digging into with the mind behind R.I.P, author Molly Horan:
→ picture books that explain death to a toddler
→ two very different books about losing a dad
→ David Sedaris, being David Sedaris about dying
Daily news for curious minds.
Be the smartest person in the room. 1440 navigates 100+ sources to deliver a comprehensive, unbiased news roundup — politics, business, culture, and more — in a quick, 5-minute read. Completely free, completely factual.
Dear Reaper · Advice
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Dear Reaper,
I’m Cleaning Out My Dead Mom’s Place, and It’s Beyond Cluttered. What Estate Paperwork Do I Look For — and What Do I Do With it?
Track down the will first, Reaper says, and invest in a good shredder. Get the full question from “Crumpled” and the rest of the answer from ‘Dear Reaper’ with Becky Robison, author of My Parents are Dead: Now What? and GraveSite’s new monthly columnist. And register for our live meet and greet.
GroundBreaker Grabs · Member Exclusives
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Funerals and the Fine Print
The bereaved are often asked to make expensive decisions within days of a loved one's death. A working knowledge of consumer rights can help cut through the shock and urgency in a high-cost marketplace.
I Didn’t Believe in the Beyond. Then a Medium Helped Me Talk to My Dead Grandfather.
As more people turn to mediums and ancestral communication, the question becomes not only whether the dead can speak, but how the living can learn to listen.
New! How to Manage the Digital Demands of Death
Spoiler alert: Start while you’re still alive.
Free access! How to Get Your Affairs in Order
A dread-free guide on the end-of-life and estate planning documents you (yes, you) should have on file.
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GraveSightings · Death News from Elsewhere
More people have died from — than on — 9/11, a doctor-turned-journalist reports for Reveal.
As summer rages on, deaths are grossly undercounted: Some 9,000 people die prematurely each summer. That’s about five times as many as federal figures show, according to new research from NPR and Boston University.
For cryo-ing out loud. Tomorrow Bio will preserve your dead body so future tech can hopefully revive you, the company’s co-founder told Times Radio. It’ll run you $200K.
When pigs fly might be, like, tomorrow: “Mind-blowing experiments in pigs, and the development of a souped-up life-support system called OrganEx, are reinvigorating a decades-old debate about how our lives end,” Esther Landhuis reports for Popular Mechanics.
In memoriam: Dolly Parton and Tim Curry died at 80 on Aug. 25, just in time for National Grief Awareness Day. Gloria Steinem followed on Sept. 2. These are some of their thoughts on death.
MAID watch: New Illinois assisted death law will take effect Sept. 12 — if it’s not blocked by Catholic nuns and a cardinal. The physician-run Quietus company is thought to be the first of its kind in New York State to help patients fulfill legal and medical MAID requirements. Plus, a transplant surgeon and a comedian share their takes on death with dignity legislation.
Colon cancer screenings can reduce your risk of dying from the disease by 43%, says a new JAMA Network Open study.
At least 15 children in an Idaho faith-healing sect have died of treatable conditions over the past decade, a ProPublica investigation found. The state’s done little to intervene.
“Even death is unaffordable in America now,” Shannon Pettypiece writes for NBC News. GraveSite’s own Kelli Finger dove deeper into funerals and the fine print. (Pro tip: You might not need that casket.)
The case for the mourning run: Grief-themed lifting classes, gyms, and rage rooms are on the rise, though the science on their efficacy trails.
Did someone say exorcise? On her first album in seven years, Good Grief, Sara Bareilles “is embracing the ‘grief exorcism,’” Vivian Rashotte writes for CBC. Critics are digging it.
“When news spread of her diagnosis… my mother’s friends descended in hordes, bringing soup and cake and clove-scented sweet peas from their gardens. But they also brought stories I hadn’t heard before,” Gaby Hinsliff reflects in the Guardian. The experience resonates with this writer, who got to dish with her dad’s friends about his wild youth while gathered at his gravesite on his would-be 69th birthday.
More vindication for the dark jokers: “The laughter at the funeral you were ashamed of was your nervous system doing something protective,” according to leading grief psychologist George Bonanno’s research.
Choice detritus from DeathTok: From the sick mind behind Hereditary: The Musical comes Obsession: The Musical.
Gif by ourpublicjournal on Giphy
Meet the team
Founder and Editor-in-Chief: Delaney Rebernik
Co-Founder and Executive Producer: Alexis Haut
Audience Editor: Charli K Elder
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