Renegade Grief Roadshow: Boston

Join us for an event to bring together the The Dinner Party community and its allies in Boston to celebrate the release of Renegade Grief: A Guide to The Wild Ride of Life After Loss by Carla Fernandez.

Joining Carla in conversation is Hannah Matthews, author of YOU OR SOMEONE YOU LOVE: REFLECTIONS FROM AN ABORTION DOULA . This event will have a brief reading, a lively discussion on the importance of community care in times of loss, and a chance to connect with fellow grievers in Boston. Join us in bringing together The Dinner Party community and its allies, past, present and future.

Note: A general admission ticket DOES NOT include a copy of Renegade Grief, if you would like to pre-order a copy, you must include it as an add-on. General admission tickets include one glass of wine and popcorn from Dear Annie.

Can’t make the event? Purchase a copy of Renegade Grief .

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From grief quests to altar-making, to dinner parties to Dungeons & Dragons, Renegade Grief is a profound and vulnerable exploration of care practices and rituals that empower grievers in a culture that expects us to simply “give it time.”

Shaped by her own experience with the death of her father and her time cofounding The Dinner Party, a leading peer-support organization for people who’ve experienced a major loss, Carla Fernandez pushes back on the death-denying culture we live in. For too long, grief has been treated as something pitiable, simply sad, to be gotten over as soon as possible. But after fifteen years of being in a community with fellow grievers, Carla has witnessed a different side of the story. Grieving a significant loss is hardcore, hardly something to be swept under the rug, but an experience to be held with respect, a creative spirit, and with friends. Through inspiring stories of real grievers, patterns from across history, and fresh science, Renegade Grief enlivens you with the permission and possibility to explore your grief in your own unique way and reminds you that you’re not alone in doing it.

Learn more about Renegade Grief.

Have questions? Please email [email protected]

Carla Fernandez’s work focuses on how circles come together to foster collective care and change culture when a new status quo is called for. She is the cofounder of The Dinner Party, a national network of peer-support circles for young adult grievers, featured in The New York Times, NPR, Oprah Daily, and cited in multiple books. In addition to her work in grief, Carla partners with a range of clients through her community design studio as an impact strategist and facilitator, particularly on initiatives related to climate change, democracy, and the arts. Carla is a senior fellow with USC’s Annenberg School Innovation Lab and a Catherine B. Reynolds Foundation Scholar in Social Entrepreneurship at NYU. She divides her time between the Hudson Valley and Joshua Tree.

Hannah Matthews is a community doula, public library worker, and writer. Her debut memoir YOU OR SOMEONE YOU LOVE: REFLECTIONS OF AN ABORTION DOULA (Atria Books, 2023) was named a finalist for the New England Book Award, a Glamour Best Nonfiction Book of 2023 and an NPR Science Friday Best Science Book of Summer 2023. Her work has been published in TIME, Vogue, Jezebel, Esquire, ELLE, The Guardian, McSweeney's, Electric Literature, and other outlets. She lives in Maine with her family, and serves on the Board of Directors of SAFE, Maine's statewide abortion fund.

Host or Publisher Carla Fernandez