About me

I offer nonmedical death and grief care through a secular, queer, and anticapitalist lens.

I was born and raised in Salt Lake City, Utah, and four generations of my dead are buried here.

I found my way to death work after a political radicalization and an autism diagnosis. After learning all that I had learned, I could no longer work as a corporate copyeditor, as I had for more than a decade.

I also left the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints in 2010, and my death work is heavily influenced by that deconstruction experience.

My training

Master of Science
Thanatology: Death Education

Edgewood University
Graduated May 2026

Thanatology is the cross-disciplinary study of dying, death, grief, and bereavement. It inspects the biological, psychological, social, cultural, and spiritual aspects of death to:

  • Understand how people experience death and the dying process

  • Help individuals and families cope with end-of-life challenges

Death doula training

Help From an End-of-Life Doula (HELD)
Jude Higgins
24 hours • 2025

Deathwives
Lauren Carroll, Erin Merelli
50 hours • 2023–2024

Teachers and mentors

  • Narinder Bazen: Creative mentor

  • Janet McCord, PhD, FT: Academic advisor

Volunteer experience

End-of-life doula
The INN Between • 2024–present

  • Provide companionship to hospice residents, in close coordination with the on-site EOLD, nursing team, and chaplain.

  • Offer activities that empower hospice residents and attend to their physical, psychological, social, and spiritual needs.

  • Sit vigil with actively dying residents as a member of the facility’s No One Dies Alone (NODA) team.

Support group volunteer
The Sharing Place • 2025–present

  • Attend a teen grief group twice a month to assist the lead coordinator with activities and group engagement.

  • Facilitate adult grief group when coordinator is absent.

  • Completed both an eight-hour children’s group training and a four-hour adult facilitator training.