Gail Rubin, CT, The Doyenne of Death®, helps get funeral
planning conversations started with a light touch on a serious subject.
She hosts the TV/DVD series, A Good Goodbye, as well as the
weekly Internet radio program on the RockStar Radio Network.
As an award-winning speaker, she uses humor and funny films to
attract people to a topic many would rather avoid. She also helped
pioneer the Death Cafe movement in the United States by hosting the first one west of the
Mississippi in Albuquerque, New Mexico in September 2012.
Rubin is a Certified Thanatologist, a designation awarded by the Association for Death
Education and Counseling. The designation Certified in Thanatology: Death, Dying and
Bereavement is a fancy name for a death educator. She has made behind-the-scenes visits to
mortuaries and the Office of the Medical Investigator, and takes continuing education courses
on funerals, death, grief, and the afterlife.
She is also a Certified Celebrant, a Life Tribute professional personally trained by Doug
Manning and Glenda Stansbury of the In-Sight Institute, the leading U.S. organization that
trains Celebrants. Gail is also a public relations professional and event planner. She has more
than 30 years of experience creating many memorable life cycle events. She is an awardwinning speaker with memberships in Toastmasters International and the National Speakers
Association New Mexico Chapter.
Many people are shocked to discover how expensive funerals can be. Gail became a licensed
insurance agent to help people fund their "good goodbyes" by introducing them to the concept
of final expense and preneed insurance. She can also help address other financial concerns,
such as long term care insurance or supplemental policies in the event of nursing home stays
or the need for home medical care.
www.AGoodGoodbye.com
As the author of “Matchings, Hatchings and Dispatchings,” an Albuquerque Tribune
column on life cycle events, she found that the columns on death elicited the greatest reader
response, indicating a pressing need for information on the topic.
She started The Family Plot Blog, a chipper online resource to provide the information,
inspiration and tools to pre-plan a healing and meaningful funeral or memorial service.
Her award-winning book, A Good Goodbye: Funeral Planning for Those Who Don’t Plan
to Die, provides everything you never knew you needed to know about funeral planning and
brings light to a dark subject. The book was awarded Best of Show in the 2011 New Mexico
Book Awards and was a finalist in the Family & Relationships category of the 2010 Book of
the Year Award from ForeWord Reviews.
She is a member of the Association for Death Education and Counseling and the International
Cemetery, Cremation and Funeral Association. She volunteers with the Chevra Kaddisha, a
group that ritually prepares the bodies of Jews for burial, and she serves on the cemetery
committee for her synagogue.
Rubin is a breast cancer survivor who began her cancer journey in the summer of 2008. She
observes, “Nothing reminds you of your own mortality more than a brush with something as
serious and transforming as cancer.”
In addition to her Tribune column, articles by and about Rubin have appeared in American
Funeral Director Magazine, Mortuary Management Magazine, ICCFA Magazine (trade
magazine for the International Cemetery, Cremation and Funeral Association), The
Albuquerque Journal, New Mexico Magazine, Albuquerque The Magazine, Enchantment,
Catholic Digest, Momentum Magazine, The New Mexico Jewish Link, the Jewish Telegraphic
Agency, Prime Time, and other publications.
A native of the Washington, D.C. area, she is a graduate of the University of Maryland,
College Park, and Montgomery College, Rockville, MD.
www.AGoodGoodbye.com