Alternative mortician, YouTube personality, and New York Times bestselling nonfiction author of From Here to Eternity: Traveling the World to Find the Good Death, Caitlin Doughty, rang me up this week to chat about changing the West’s relationship to death, the challenges of running a non-profit funeral home, and how to write a bestselling book in your spare time.

Rainmaker.FM is Brought to You By

Discover why more than 80,000 companies in 135 countries choose WP Engine for managed WordPress hosting.

Start getting more from your site today!

Caitlin is the creator of “Ask a Mortician,” a web series that boasts over 300,000 subscribers, and the founder of The Order of the Good Death, a nonprofit that advocates for death acceptance and an alternative to Western funeral industry practices.

Her first bestselling book and memoir, Smoke Gets in Your Eyes: and Other Lessons from the Crematory, chronicled her experiences as a young woman working in a crematorium.

Her latest, From Here to Eternity, resumes her exploration of the field to explore “… how other cultures care for the dead,” and “… is an immersive global journey that introduces compelling, powerful rituals almost entirely unknown in America.”

Her mission to reform the death industry has led to features on NPR, BBC, The New Yorker, Vice, The Atlantic, the New York Times, and many others.

If you’re a fan of The Writer Files, please click subscribe to automatically see new interviews.

In this file Caitlin Doughty and I discuss:

• Her strong voice for change and how that got her an agent
• How a full-time mortician finds time to write bestselling books
• The sense of doubt that all writers face
• How her greater mission overtook her fear of writing
• Why writers need to be less precious about their work
• The Muse of Death
• Why you need to Tweet an inspirational writing quote to Caitlin @TheGoodDeath – #TheWriterFiles – after you listen to this show

Listen to The Writer Files: Writing, Productivity, Creativity, and Neuroscience below ...

Download MP3 Subscribe by RSS Subscribe in iTunes The Show Notes

• If you’re ready to see for yourself why over 201,344 website owners trust StudioPress — the industry standard for premium WordPress themes and plugins — just go to StudioPress.com

From Here to Eternity: Traveling the World to Find the Good Death – Caitlin Doughty

CaitlinDoughty.com

Ask A Mortician on YouTube

Caitlin Doughty on Instagram

The Order of the Good Death

Undertaking LA (is not your typical funeral home)

There Are Better Ways to Mourn – Caitlin Doughty for Time

Caitlin Doughty on Twitter

Kelton Reid on Twitter

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices