Outside the Box

We live in a society where people struggle to look death in the eye. Death has become the territory of professionals and we rarely see a dead body, unless it is someone very close to us. Death has become hidden, and so more traumatic. This book shows that, if we start talking openly about death, it can change the way we live. It is a collection of stories and images about death, dying and bereavement. People from all walks of life share their experiences and what they have learned from accompanying others. Heartbreaking, angry, questioning and contradictory – laugh-aloud funny, even – the stories illuminate, inspire, reassure and inform. They are accompanied by commentaries from professionals working in end-of-life planning, health, bereavement and funeral care.

Author Biography

Liz Rothschild is a writer, actor, playwright and founding director of Westmill woodland burial ground in Wiltshire. She has been a funeral celebrant for more than 25 years and has run numerous death cafes and a course on preparing for end of life. In 2012 she launched, and continues to curate, the Kicking the Bucket Festival in Oxford. She also wrote and performs a one-woman show, Outside the Box – a life show about death, which premiered in 2016 and has toured the UK and US. Many of these stories come from her audiences.