This special event is focused on self-care before and after loss.

Barri Leiner Grant is founder of The Memory Circle, an initiative that offers individuals a safe and supportive environment to gather, remember, and celebrate the people they’ve loved and lost. As a grief coach, she offers one-on-one sessions, courses that explore grief through writing, and intimate “support circles” that bring people together to share their grief stories. Barri’s mother died of a brain aneurysm and she brings this personal experience to her work, including helping organizations develop best practices and policies around bereavement leave and employee grief support. She’s also creator of the innovative “Remember and Reflect” deck, a collection of 50 cards that encourage the bereaved to honor their unique history – no matter where they are on their grief journey.

Jenny Lisk is the author of Widowed Parents Unite and Future Widow, winner of the New York City Big Book Award, and a widowed mom who is dedicated to helping widowed parents increase their family's well-being. In Future Widow, Jenny reflects on losing her husband, Dennis, to brain cancer and provides a practical guide for surviving and thriving while raising grieving children. Jenny is also host of The Widowed Parent Podcast and an active member of the National Alliance for Children’s Grief. As a seasoned interviewer, Jenny has explored loss and parenthood with more than 100 experts and authors, many of whom are also widowed parents.

Allison Gilbert is host of For Grief’s Passed and Present event series and author of Passed and Present: Keeping Memories of Loved Ones Alive; Always Too Soon: Voices of Support for Those Who Have Lost Both Parents; and Parentless Parents: How the Loss of Our Mothers and Fathers Impacts the Way We Raise Our Children. Gilbert serves on the Advisory Board of the Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors and is a past Board Member of the National Alliance for Children’s Grief.

In addition to her work in the grief space, Allison Gilbert, an Emmy Award-winning journalist, helps writers best position their stories for publication through her initiative Pub Day, and recently co-authored Listen, World!: How the Intrepid Elsie Robinson Became America’s Most-Read Woman.