In this episode, I have the great pleasure of speaking with Darlene Madott who describes herself with distinct precision: “a writer” and “a reluctant lawyer who had to find a way of being in the world.” In this wide-ranging conversation, Darlene talks about her latest book, Closing Ceremonies and Dying Times, a paired collection that explores heartbreak, grief, death, and love with a rare blend of tenderness and dark humor. Closing Ceremonies follows characters through “the aftermath of love,” moving from abandonment and betrayal toward reconciliation, while Dying Times is more about how to live than how to die. We dig into the personal and creative forces behind the book, including a later-life heartbreak after a 21-year relationship that led her to write “Parsing His Goodbyes.” What began as a reluctant confrontation with pain then became a seven-year creative journey through grief, humour, revenge, empathy, and ultimately love. Darlene also reflects on the boundary between fiction and memoir, drawing on her legal background and her years of listening closely to clients’ stories, family memories, and lived experience, all the raw material she reshapes into fiction. Moreover, we also trace Darlene’s lifelong calling as a storyteller, from childhood puppet shows and a Grade 2 pirate novel to her decision during COVID to leave law behind and commit fully to writing. She shares the unusual publishing journey of Dying Times, its republication alongside Closing Ceremonies, and its Italian translation, which became a deeply meaningful return to her ancestral roots. At its heart, this podcast is about transformation: heartbreak into art, endings into ceremonies, death into wisdom, and writing into a way of loving the world.

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“What did the council decide on item 42?” — answered with the speaker and the moment.

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