We’re thrilled to bring you our recent Coffee Talk #73 from October 2025. We hope these five phenomenal writers/readers/humans and their stories are just what your heart needs today. We’re delighted to bring you Cait West, Ivy Eisenberg Jane Dorn, Jason Arias, and Pat Jewett.Enjoy!

Thank you for letting us be in your ears.

Coffee, Grief and Gratitude is created by Anne Gudger and Maria Gibson, a mom/daughter duo who talk about grief. 

You can find them on Facebook at Coffee and Grief. Please join their private Facebook page: Coffee and Grief Community.

You can also email Anne and Maria at: [email protected]

Anne’s memoir, THE FIFTH CHAMBER, a memoir of loss and love, is available wherever you get your books.

Once you’ve read THE FIFTH CHAMBER, Anne would be so grateful if you’d share your honest thoughts on Amazon and Goodreads. Thank you for taking a few minutes to review!

We’d love you to like and share the podcast! 

Rebe was 19 when her mother died. She didn’t allow herself to feel her grief, following well-meaning advice to put her grief aside. Thirty years later, Rebe went on a quest to know her mother, to grieve her. She traveled to Cuba and learned to grieve from a culture that holds their dead close. She saw it was possible to communicate with the other side, and it changed her relationship to her mother and her grief. 

Rebe Huntman is a memoirist, essayist, dancer, teacher, and poet who writes at the intersections of feminism, world religion and spirituality. For over a decade she directed Chicago’s award-winning Danza Viva Center for World Dance, Art & Music and its dance company, One World Dance Theater. Huntman collaborates with native artists in Cuba and South America, has been featured in Latina Magazine, Chicago Magazine, and the Chicago Tribune, and has appeared on Fox and ABC. A Macondo fellow and recipient of an Ohio Individual Excellence award, Huntman received support for her debut memoir, My Mother in Havana: A Memoir of Magic & Miracle (Monkfish Book Publishing Company, 2025), from The Ohio State University, Virginia Center for Creative Arts, Ragdale Foundation, PLAYA Residency, Hambidge Center, and Brush Creek Foundation. She lives in Delaware, Ohio and San Miguel de Allende, Mexico.

Thank you for letting us be in your ears.

Coffee, Grief and Gratitude is created by Anne Gudger and Maria Gibson, a mom/daughter duo who talk about grief. 

You can find them on Facebook at Coffee and Grief. Please join their private Facebook page: Coffee and Grief Community.

You can also email Anne and Maria at: [email protected]

Anne’s memoir, THE FIFTH CHAMBER, a memoir of loss and love, is available wherever you get your books.

Once you’ve read THE FIFTH CHAMBER, Anne would be so grateful if you’d share your honest thoughts on Amazon and Goodreads. Thank you for taking a few minutes to review!

We’d love you to like and share the podcast! 

We’re thrilled to bring you our recent Coffee Talk #73 from October 2025. We hope these five phenomenal writers/readers/humans and their stories are just what your heart needs today. We’re delighted to bring you Asha Dore, Bob Macauley, Brad Snyder, Karen Bonofiglio, and Rebecca Thompson. Enjoy!

Thank you for letting us be in your ears.

Coffee, Grief and Gratitude is created by Anne Gudger and Maria Gibson, a mom/daughter duo who talk about grief. 

You can find them on Facebook at Coffee and Grief. Please join their private Facebook page: Coffee and Grief Community.

You can also email Anne and Maria at: [email protected]

Anne’s memoir, THE FIFTH CHAMBER, a memoir of loss and love, is available wherever you get your books.

Once you’ve read THE FIFTH CHAMBER, Anne would be so grateful if you’d share your honest thoughts on Amazon and Goodreads. Thank you for taking a few minutes to review!

We’d love you to like and share the podcast! 

Chelsea shares her triple griefs: the death of her beloved dad, Eddie, her mom’s dementia, and recovering from being hit by a car while she was out for a run. In our conversation you’ll hear Chelsea talk about her love for her dad who was “magic.” She tells us grief taught her how to “pick through the rice and find the beans.” She shares her grief wisdom: “Meet people without judgement. When we share, it gets a little easier, we breathe a little deeper.”

Thank you for letting us be in your ears.

Coffee, Grief and Gratitude is created by Anne Gudger and Maria Gibson, a mom/daughter duo who talk about grief. 

You can find them on Facebook at Coffee and Grief. Please join their private Facebook page: Coffee and Grief Community.

You can also email Anne and Maria at: [email protected]

Anne’s memoir, THE FIFTH CHAMBER, a memoir of loss and love, is available wherever you get your books.

Once you’ve read THE FIFTH CHAMBER, Anne would be so grateful if you’d share your honest thoughts on Amazon and Goodreads. Thank you for taking a few minutes to review!

We’d love you to like and share the podcast! 

We’re delighted to bring you our recent Coffee Talk #72 from September 2025. We hope these five phenomenal writers/readers/humans and their stories are just what your heart needs today. We’re delighted to bring you Ali Shaw, Christina Rivera, Kate Carroll de Gutes, Jasmine Nothing, and Liz Scott. 

Thank you for letting us be in your ears.

Coffee, Grief and Gratitude is created by Anne Gudger and Maria Gibson, a mom/daughter duo who talk about grief. 

You can find them on Facebook at Coffee and Grief. Please join their private Facebook page: Coffee and Grief Community.

You can also email Anne and Maria at: [email protected]

Anne’s memoir, THE FIFTH CHAMBER, a memoir of loss and love, is available wherever you get your books.

Once you’ve read THE FIFTH CHAMBER, Anne would be so grateful if you’d share your honest thoughts on Amazon and Goodreads. Thank you for taking a few minutes to review!

We’d love you to like and share the podcast! 

Enjoy!

Doug shares openly about many layers of grief from the death of his mom to being estranged from his kids. He talks about his mom who would say Kindness is the best thing. He says that thinking the best of people is his strength and can also be his weakness. He shares how in his grief he had to protect himself which doesn’t come naturally so he leaned into other people’s words. We love that he said grief is for everybody. Everybody experiences it. “All I can do is allow myself to experience grief and have empathy for others grieving.”

Doug Chase is a writer and retired bookseller living in Oregon with his spouse and two ridiculous cats. His writing has appeared in City of Weird: Thirty Otherworldly Portland Tales, The Untold Gaze, and Deep Overstock Issue 7: Horror, as well as a few places online. He has been a regular reader at the Burnt Tongue reading series and a few other events in Portland, and hosts a regular reading series with his own writing group and special guests. 

Thank you for letting us be in your ears.

Coffee, Grief and Gratitude is created by Anne Gudger and Maria Gibson, a mom/daughter duo who talk about grief. 

You can find them on Facebook at Coffee and Grief. Please join their private Facebook page: Coffee and Grief Community.

You can also email Anne and Maria at: [email protected]

Anne’s memoir, THE FIFTH CHAMBER, a memoir of loss and love, is available wherever you get your books.

Once you’ve read THE FIFTH CHAMBER, Anne would be so grateful if you’d share your honest thoughts on Amazon and Goodreads. Thank you for taking a few minutes to review!

We’d love you to like and share the podcast! 

In this episode, Melanie Brooks openly shares the experience of her father dying from AIDS and how, as a family, they didn’t talk about him being sick. It took her 20 years to look at the silence and grief. 

Her dad was infected with AIDS from a blood transfusion during surgery. Her dad was a surgeon. He thought he’d die in months so he decided to keep his health a secret to avoid the stigmas around AIDS. He and their family lived with the silence for ten years. 

Melanie shares some beautiful insights around grief. She says, “I couldn’t move forward without looking back.” She believed she was preparing herself for years, but nothing could prepare her for the loss.

Melanie Brooks is the author of the memoir A Hard Silence: One daughter remaps family, grief, and faith when HIV/AIDS changes it all (Vine Leaves Press, 2023) and Writing Hard Stories: Celebrated Memoirists Who Shaped Art from Trauma (Beacon Press, 2017) She teaches creative nonfiction in the M.F.A. program at Bay Path University and in the M.F.A. program at Western Connecticut State University and professional writing at Northeastern University. She holds an M.F.A. in Creative Nonfiction from the University of Southern Maine’s Stonecoast writing program and a Certificate in Narrative Medicine from Columbia University. She has had numerous interviews and essays on topics ranging from loss and grief to parenting and aging published in The Boston Globe, The Toronto Globe and Mail, HuffPost, Yankee Magazine, Psychology Today, The Washington Post, Ms. Magazine, Creative Nonfiction, and other notable publications. She lives in New Hampshire with her husband, two children (when they are home from university), and chocolate Lab.

Thank you for letting us be in your ears.

Coffee, Grief and Gratitude is created by Anne Gudger and Maria Gibson, a mom/daughter duo who talk about grief. 

You can find them on Facebook at Coffee and Grief. Please join their private Facebook page: Coffee and Grief Community.

You can also email Anne and Maria at: [email protected]

Anne’s memoir, THE FIFTH CHAMBER, a memoir of loss and love, is available wherever you get your books.

Once you’ve read THE FIFTH CHAMBER, Anne would be so grateful if you’d share your honest thoughts on Amazon and Goodreads. Thank you for taking a few minutes to review!

We’d love you to like and share the podcast! 

We’re delighted to bring you our recent Coffee Talk #71 from July 2025. We hope these five phenomenal writers/readers/humans and their stories are just what your heart needs today. We’re delighted to bring you Clare Simons, Debby Dodds, Laura Cathcart Robbins, Rebe Huntman, and Zane Thomas. 

Thank you for letting us be in your ears.

Coffee, Grief and Gratitude is created by Anne Gudger and Maria Gibson, a mom/daughter duo who talk about grief. 

You can find them on Facebook at Coffee and Grief. Please join their private Facebook page: Coffee and Grief Community.

You can also email Anne and Maria at: [email protected]

Anne’s memoir, THE FIFTH CHAMBER, a memoir of loss and love, is available wherever you get your books.

Once you’ve read THE FIFTH CHAMBER, Anne would be so grateful if you’d share your honest thoughts on Amazon and Goodreads. Thank you for taking a few minutes to review!

We’d love you to like and share the podcast! 

Enjoy!

We’re delighted to bring you our recent Coffee Talk #70 from June 2025. We hope these five phenomenal writers/readers/humans and their stories are just what your heart needs today. We bring you: Lisa Cowan, Mary Klinger, Nancy Townsley, Shavaun Scott, and  Suzy Vitello. Enjoy!

Thank you for letting us be in your ears.

Coffee, Grief and Gratitude is created by Anne Gudger and Maria Gibson, a mom/daughter duo who talk about grief. 

You can find them on Facebook at Coffee and Grief. Please join their private Facebook page: Coffee and Grief Community.

You can also email Anne and Maria at: [email protected]

Anne’s memoir, THE FIFTH CHAMBER, a memoir of loss and love, is available wherever you get your books.

Once you’ve read THE FIFTH CHAMBER, Anne would be so grateful if you’d share your honest thoughts on Amazon and Goodreads. Thank you for taking a few minutes to review!

We’d love you to like and share the podcast! 

In this episode Phillipa Leseberg reads from her new memoir: HIS NAME IS ERIC: a book that records her love story with her beloved husband Eric who died from cancer. It’s a love story, a story of resilience and advocacy, and so much more. 

Phillipa shares how through Eric’s illness and death, her concept of grief expanded. Grief started when Eric’s health first declined. Eric grieved his loss of work. Phillipa grieved the loss of her husband’s mobility. They grieved through all the treatments. Together they experienced intense grief when they realized treatments weren’t working. Philllipa grieves Eric, his death, and the life they had. 

Phillipa Leseberg is a Kiwi-American adventurer, dolphin & whale swimmer, advocate for juicing and organic food, and debut author. Her memoir, HIS NAME IS ERIC, chronicles the journey of soulmates Phillipa and Eric, facing the unthinkable: a stage-four cancer diagnosis that upends their lives. His Name is Eric is a tribute to resilience, courage, and hope when conventional medicine fails to provide the desired results. It offers an authentic love story while exploring alternative healing paths for cancer.

Based in Seattle, she lives a life filled with travel, adventure, writing and frequently visits her daughter and beloved pup in Hawai’i.

You can find her at: 

https://www.facebook.com/phillipa.leseberg  

https://www.instagram.com/phillipaleseberg/

https://phillipaleseberg.com/

Thank you for letting us be in your ears.

Coffee, Grief and Gratitude is created by Anne Gudger and Maria Gibson, a mom/daughter duo who talk about grief. 

You can find them on Facebook at Coffee and Grief. Please join their private Facebook page: Coffee and Grief Community.

You can also email Anne and Maria at: [email protected]

Anne’s memoir, THE FIFTH CHAMBER, a memoir of loss and love, is available wherever you get your books.

Once you’ve read THE FIFTH CHAMBER, Anne would be so grateful if you’d share your honest thoughts on Amazon and Goodreads. Thank you for taking a few minutes to review!

We’d love you to like and share the podcast!