Mikki Brammer

Thank you, Bianca.

It's such an honor, and can I just say on the record, thank you to you for this podcast because I've been listening since before I was even querying my first novel, and it's helped me so much, and I have so many friends that I know it's helped.

And I know that you put so much time and thought and effort and probably your own money into it.

So I just wanted to appreciate you on the air, so to speak.

Yes, sure.

So I am a journalist by trade and never actually planned to write a book.

And ever since I was a kid, I'd had quite an intense fear of death.

And as part of that, I was trying to, instead of avoiding everything, I tried to get curious about it.

And part of that was going to a lot of talks and things like that, and events in New York City, listening to podcasts.

And that's when I came across the concept of a death doula.

And I was just fascinated.

And I thought, who would do that?

Who would dedicate their life to

or the profession to essentially watching people die.

And then I thought, Oh, actually, who would do that?

That would be a really interesting character, like what would lead someone to do that.

And then I wanted to incorporate everything I'd learned from this kind of immersion that had helped me overcome my fear.

And I thought, what if I could do that with a later coming of age story, Clover is 36, and make her coming of age as a bit of a Trojan horse.

So as she kind of

has this awakening, I'm also weaving in all of these themes that I learned from the death cafes and all of that sort of thing.