About this Event
If you want a ticket without the book purchase, email [email protected]
Join us for an event to bring together The Dinner Party community and its allies in Denver 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 MP Diaz Frasene, Executive Director of The Dinner Party, and Chelsea Leader Gold from the Grand Exit Podcast. 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 Denver. Join us in bringing together The Dinner Party community and its allies, past, present and future. Attendees will have the chance to hear from Carla directly, ask questions, and get their books signed.
ABOUT THE BOOK
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.”
So, you’ve lost someone. At first, there is an outpour of support and phone calls and care packages. But after the services are done and the phone stops ringing, there is a quiet in the air and an expectation to get on with your life as previously planned. The problem is that death has a way of making all plans go out the window. Renegade Grief offers the support in this next stage of grieving—when you feel isolated in your loss and are figuring out how to navigate it.
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.
Renegade Grief is an indispensable resource for people at any stage of the grieving process and with Carla’s candid and compassionate guidance, you learn that life after loss isn’t about the futile attempt of arriving at some other side. Rather, it’s about building your community, adjusting to change, and finding the way for your grief to become a pathway into your own version of a soulful life.
ABOUT THE SPEAKERS
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.
Chelsea Leader Gold is strategic leader and storyteller in ruthless pursuit of inspiring people to live to their fullest aliveness. Chelsea is co-founder and co-host of Grand Exit - a podcast that brings the life-death-legacy continuum to our most meaningful relationships – in technicolor; CEO (and Brand Bodyguard) of Campowerment - an expert-led retreat production, powered by play; and a brand consultant with a contagious entrepreneurial spirit and passion for community-building for social betterment. She’s excited to share her big love for inspiring interaction and connection where it might otherwise lay dormant, with others who are fueled by the same.
Mary Pauline “MP” Diaz-Frasene (she/her) is Executive Director of The Dinner Party. She comes to this work as a way to continue her relationship with the people in her life who’ve died—including an older sister, friends and people from her work—and because she believes deeply in grief’s power to resist systems that dehumanize us and our relationships. Before and beyond TDP, her work has taken her to bridges and alleys, hospital beds and detention centers, and other liminal spaces as a direct advocate with people experiencing homelessness, a spiritual care provider, and an organizer. She lives in Aurora (where she was born and raised!) and holds other roots in Seattle and the Philippines.
AGENDA
6:00PM Welcome
6:15PM Introduction
6:20PM Renegade Grief reading & interactive prompts
6:45PM Group discussion
7:10PM Q&A and Disscussion
7:25PM Announcements from TDP HQ
6:30PM Community connection, book signing, & mingling
Masks are encouraged. They will be supplied at the door.
Event Venue & Nearby Stays
The Shop at MATTER, 2114 Market Street, Denver, United States
USD 32.00
