This month on The Modern Loss Handbook tour: LA, SF and Boston
Plus, register for our Father's Day gift swap through 6/10
Hi everyone,
Pitching, writing, and launching a book is always a nerve-racking experience from soup to nuts. But I am so grateful for the support you have given The Modern Loss Handbook: An Interactive Guide to Moving Through Grief and Building Your Resilience, which, I’ve learned, is a Barnes & Noble bestseller. You’ve made this landing a lot softer than I could have ever imagined it would be.
Stay tuned for a special newsletter issue later this month. In the meantime, I’ll be traversing the country for several events, so please find me at one of them before I take a bit of a breather this summer. I would love to meet you IRL. Above all, that has been the best part of this entire experience.
— Rebecca Soffer
Are you bracing yourself for FD in some way as it relates to a loss? Missing your dad? A child? A fatherly figure? A partner? Registration for our (6th!) annual Father’s Day gift swap is officially open.
How do our swaps work? Modern Loss does takes a griefy holiday and turns it into one where you can give and get something special from someone else who feels the same way. We can’t believe it but since 2017 we have matched nearly 2,000 people.
Open to U.S. and Canada only, but we’re trying to figure out how to scale this internationally!
Register here through June 10.
June 20 in San Francisco @ Book Passage
Above I mentioned that the IRL aspect has been the best part of this entire experience. I am overjoyed to reunite with my dear friend Lucy Kalanithi for this conversation. Lucy is a Clinical Associate Professor of Medicine at Stanford University and an advocate for culture change around healthcare value. Her husband, Dr. Paul Kalanithi, is author of the #1 New York Times-bestselling memoir When Breath Becomes Air. This will be good.
Book Passage at the San Francisco Ferry Building, 5 pm (yes, a Monday at 5 pm! Apparently anything goes in the Bay Area.) More details here.
June 22 in Los Angeles @ Book Soup
I’m thrilled to return to the fantastic Book Soup in West Hollywood, which graciously hosted my first book LA stop in 2018. I’ll be with my very, very, VERY funny friend (and fellow member of the Dead Mom Club) Katie Rich, a Saturday Night Live “Weekend Update” writer and showrunner for Netflix’s Chicago Party Aunt. She has an uncanny ability to offset the tough stuff with levity. So for anyone who has been nervous to go to a “literary grief event,” this is a great one to try.
Book Soup on Sunset Boulevard in West Hollywood, 7 pm. More details here.
June 27 in Boston @ Porter Square Books
Boston and Cambridge folks, please find me at Porter Square Books the last week of the month. I’ll be chatting with Laura Zigman, author of the loss-focused Separation Anxiety (which was just optioned for a limited television series) and Animal Husbandry (which was made into the movie Someone Like You, starring Hugh Jackman and Ashley Judd). Laura has written for Modern Loss and I’m so excited to finally meet her – and you? – in person.
Porter Square Books in Cambridge, 7 pm. More details here.
One final note
The Modern Loss Handbook published on May 17 and has already headed to a third – 3rd?!! – printing. Thank you all so much for the wide-ranging support. This is a big deal/dream for authors, and also, this stuff doesn’t happen a lot. I’m very grateful to you all.
If you haven't checked out the book for yourself or someone else, you can find it wherever books are sold.