Playwright Naomi Westerman was an anthropology grad student studying death rituals around the world when her whole family died, turning death from the academic to the deeply personal. She struggled with grief and talking about, particularly as a young woman, realising while death is everywhere in our culture, grief is harder to find in specialist ways.

This Inkling combines academic study with memoir to discuss the popularity of murder as entertainment in true crime podcasts; women working in the death industry; Naomi’s love of horror and what it’s like writing horror movies for a living when your mum was maybe murdered; the rise of death peer support groups; and death rituals in other countries. Happy Death Club provides a frank, touching and sometimes hilarious look at death, grief, and bereavement.

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