I'm the founder The Brooklyn Cottage, a community arts salon I ran out of my Prospect Heights living room from 2012 to 2017 which--through storytelling evenings, meditation gatherings, cooking classes, pop-up art shows and experiential workshops of all kinds--served as an incubator and lab for unleashing our most wildly creative, improvisational and generous selves. I believe that our capacity to know and experience joy lies in direct proportion to our willingness to grieve as being truly alive requires. A former television and radio producer, I now lead "Grief & Gratitude" gatherings for people making their way through mourning and loss and received a certificate in Integrative Thanatology from the New York Open Center in 2019.