Porter Square Books: Boston Edition and GrubStreet are delighted to present the latest installment of the Grubbie Debut event series, featuring Amy Shea! Join us for a celebration of their debut nonfiction book, Too Poor to Die: The Hidden Realities of Dying in the Margins. Ethan Gilsdorf will join Shea in conversation, and the author talk will be followed by a signing line.

This event is co-presented by GrubStreet and Porter Square Books

Death is the great equalizer, but not all deaths are created equal. In recent years, there has been an increased interest and advocacy concerning end-of-life and after-death care. An increasing number of individuals and organizations from health care to the funeral and death care industries are working to promote and encourage people to consider their end-of-life wishes. Yet, there are limits to who these efforts reach and who can access such resources. These conversations come from a place of good intentions, but also from a place of privilege.

Too Poor to Die: The Hidden Realities of Dying in the Margins, a collection of closely connected essays, takes the reader on a journey into what happens to those who die while experiencing homelessness or who end up indigent or unclaimed at the end of life. Too Poor to Die bears witness to the disparities in death and dying faced by some of society’s most vulnerable and marginalized and asks the reader to consider their own end-of-life and disposition plans within the larger context of how privilege and access plays a role in what we want versus what we get in death.

"An unflinching and illuminating look at subjects that our culture too often sweep under the rug but can no longer afford to ignore. Shea's prose glimmers with creativity, compassion, and intelligence."
— Justin Hocking

"Shea deftly examines how our society fails those who live on the margins, both in life and in death. This compassionate and unflinching book will break your heart for the better."
— Beth Winegarner

"This book is essential reading for anyone wanting or needing to know more about how we can understand and support those who are dying, especially people experiencing poverty. Well researched and personally grounded, these essays are also acts of, and a template for, activism."
— Elizabeth Reeder

Amy Shea is an essayist and the author of Too Poor to Die: The Hidden Realities of Dying in the Margins. Her work has appeared in The Missouri Review, Pangyrus, Portland Review, The Massachusetts Review, Spry Literary Journal, Fat City Review, From Glasgow to Saturn, & the Journal of Sociology of Health & Illness. She works as the Writing Program Director for Mount Tamalpais College, a free community college for the incarcerated people of San Quentin. Learn more about her work at https://amysshea.com.

A GrubStreet instructor since 2007, Ethan Gilsdorf is a journalist, memoirist, essayist, critic, poet, teacher, performer, and nerd. He is the author of the award-winning travel memoir investigation Fantasy Freaks and Gaming Geeks (named a Massachusetts Center for the Book Mass Books Awards “Nonfiction Must-Read” and Nominated for the Alex Award by the Young Adult Library Services Association). Hundreds of his personal essays, articles, reviews, cultural commentaries, profiles, opinion pieces, short stories, and poems have appeared in the New York Times, New York Times Book Review, Washington Post, Esquire, Boston Globe, Wired, Salon, O (the Oprah Magazine), Huffington Post, National Geographic, Brevity, Poetry, Poets & Writers, The Southern Review, North American Review, among other publications. Twice his work has been named "Notable" by The Best American Essays. A regular presenter, performer, and event moderator, he’s been featured on NPR, The Discovery Channel, PBS, CBC, BBC; and in the documentary Revenge of the Geeks. A former Paris-based food and film critic and travel writer, Gilsdorf is based in Providence, Rhode Island, where he works as a freelance journalist, and teaches essay, memoir, journalism and other creative writing workshops for adults and kids in Boston, Providence, and online for GrubStreet.

Celebrating over 25 years as the nation's leading and largest independent center for creative writing, GrubStreet is the place where writers develop their craft – and themselves – through the power of writing and sharing their work. GrubStreet offers hundreds of creative writing programs and events for writers from all backgrounds and ages at its Center for Creative Writing in the Seaport, in many Boston neighborhoods, and online. Scholarships are available for all offerings, and many programs are free. At its center, GrubStreet also hosts a community lounge, a podcast studio, Porter Square Books: Boston Edition, and a Writers’ Stage. Learn more at www.grubstreet.org.

Grubbie Debut: Amy Shea, author of Too Poor to Die, in conversation with Ethan Gilsdorf