Writing Workshop: Reading, Writing, & Dancing with Death

The Connecticut Death Collective & Darien Public Library welcome Amy Shea, essayist and author of Too Poor to Die: The Hidden Realities of Dying in the Margins (Rutgers University Press, 2025). Inspired by the classic imagery of the dance with death (a memento mori) —artworks that depict skeletons leading people from every station of life into the grave—Amy will guide participants through writing prompts and exercises that open space for reflection and creativity. Attendees will generate their own short pieces of poetry or prose in response to the images, using writing as a way to explore inequities in death and dying, and to consider how art can help us give language to the unspoken.

Books for sale by Barrett Bookstore!

Plus, we’re collecting sock donations for Open Doors, Norwalk!