Join the Pre-Dead Social Club for an evening with Jane K. Callahan, author of "A Death Doula’s Guide to a Meaningful End", in conversation with Pre-Dead Social Club founder and end-of-life doula, Laura Cleminson. They’ll discuss the many things most of us don’t realize we need to know until life suddenly asks us to know them.

As an end-of-life doula, hospice volunteer, educator, and graduate student in clinical mental health counseling, Jane has spent years supporting individuals and families through the emotional, practical, and deeply human realities that accompany serious illness and death. Through her work, she has witnessed firsthand how our culture’s avoidance of death-related conversations often creates unnecessary suffering, confusion, and isolation.

What makes Jane’s work especially compelling is her ability to balance honesty with warmth, humor, and humanity. Through memorable stories woven from both her clients’ lives and her own lived experiences, she us into conversations that are often avoided—but deeply needed. Her approach is thoughtful, grounded, vulnerable, and refreshingly real, offering reassurance that meaningful end-of-life experiences are possible when we’re willing to lean into the conversation and not just cross the bridge when we get there.

- Audience Q&A will follow, along with time for book signing.
- Books will also be available for sale at the event on a first-come/first-served basis.

Jane K. Callahan is an end-of-life doula, author, hospice volunteer, and graduate student in clinical mental health counseling based in Durham, North Carolina. Trained through both INELDA and the University of Vermont’s Larner College of Medicine, she also serves on the Board of Directors for the Funeral Consumers Alliance of North Carolina and is an active member of the National End-of-Life Doula Alliance (NEDA).

Since 2018, Jane has supported terminally ill individuals and their families through the practical, emotional, and deeply human realities of dying, death, and grief. Through hospice work, educational programs, and community conversations across the Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill region, she has become known for helping people approach end-of-life matters with greater honesty, clarity, and compassion.

Her book, A Death Doula’s Guide to a Meaningful End, blends memorable stories, lived experience, and thoughtful reflection to explore what most people don’t realize they need to know about dying until it becomes personal. With warmth, wit, and a willingness to be both vulnerable and real, Jane invites readers into the kinds of conversations our culture too often avoids—offering reassurance that meaningful, connected experiences around death are possible.

Laura Cleminson is an end-of-life doula and founder of the Pre-Dead Social Club. She believes that when we create consistent opportunities to come together—before a serious diagnosis—we can better explore how we approach our body’s natural dying process, the honest limitations of modern medicine, and the essential role of family caregiving. With greater awareness and preparation, we can reduce the emotional toll on individuals, families, caregivers, and the medical community—and move toward more peaceful end-of-life experiences.

The Pre-Dead Social Club is on a mission to bring fresh energy to vital conversations about dying and death, fostering understanding among individuals, loved ones, and the professionals they rely on. Together, we cultivate clarity, build confidence, and advocate for compassionate, personalized end-of-life experiences.