I’m Writing a Book About Grief

I’m writing a book.

The working title is Through the Viewfinder, and it will explore the transformative power of self-expression in navigating grief in its many forms by presenting my personal stories and a diverse collection of interviewees, accompanied by collaborative photographic portraits.

It offers readers the opportunity to make meaning of their relationship with grief and acknowledge that not all grief is the same, nor is the way through it.

Most of you know me as a photographer and now a speaker who creates collaborative portraits through active listening and challenges the responsibilities we all have when creating, consuming and sharing images.

I’ve been in a lifelong relationship with grief and have observed, both in myself and others, that creative acts of self-expression help us learn to live alongside grief instead of fighting it.

This book is structured intentionally with interviews and collaborative portraits.

Photography has always been my primary means of communication and self-expression, especially when grief has set up camp in my home.

This book will explore the evolution of my creative self-expression—catalyzed by my Dad’s death, and weave together stories of grief we often don’t acknowledge.

Words can help you understand the story of someone’s grief. But they can’t show you the exact moment they decided to keep living with it rather than fight it.

Each person I interview decides how they want to be seen, just as I share in my TEDx talk and practice in every photo session. The portrait and the interview together create something neither could alone: a fuller picture of how someone learned to live alongside their grief.

Not all grief is the same, nor is the way through it.

When looking for resources on grief in 2007, I mostly found black-and-white “solutions” with checkboxes, calendars, and fluffy words of “affirmation”.

I didn’t see myself reflected in the books that were all over the bookshelves.

Since then, I’ve experienced and witnessed so many other forms of grief that don’t fit the “traditional” narrative:

Grief over a child’s medical diagnosis.

Grief over infertility.

Grief for a culture that was systematically erased.

Grief over a future that looks nothing like what you planned.

Grief that has no clear “before” because it’s been with you your whole life.

This book will hold space for those less-acknowledged forms of grief, not to solve them, but to witness them.

Each interview, each portrait, is an invitation for readers to see their own grief reflected and realize: you’re not alone in this. And there’s more than one way through.

Each story offers readers a mirror: you’re not alone in your grief, and you get to choose how you express it.

My TEDx talk, Shifting the Lens: Every Image is a Decision (dropping soon), is about the same question at the heart of this book: who gets to decide how someone’s story is shared?

Project Mighty Hearts, portraits of families navigating medical trauma, and Debwewin Threads of Truth, which examined personal and collective histories of colonialism through photography and storytelling with youth, are where I’ve experienced and witnessed how creative expression transforms grief into something we can live alongside

The Photo Collective, my online community of photographers, is where I practice what I’m teaching in this book. We explore questions like: Whose story are you actually telling when you lift your camera? How do you create conditions for people to be seen, not performed? What does collaboration really require?

This book has been in the making for 19 years. Every photo session, every workshop, every student I’ve taught, every family I’ve photographed, it’s all been witness and research without realizing it.

The medium changes. The work doesn’t.

I knew I was ready for this book a while ago, but I was trying to force it to be something it wasn’t, fit a checkbox for a proposal. With expert support and many minutes of free-writing, I’ve realized this photobook is exactly what it needs to be.

There is nothing quite like the universe showing you an opportunity to practice what you preach. Thank goodness I have so many more tools now to tend to this newly opened wound, unlike 19 years ago when my Dad died.

Between now and publication, I’ll be sharing excerpts here on Substack, stories from the interviews, behind-the-scenes of the writing and photography process, and reflections on what this work is teaching me. You’ll see the collaborative portrait process unfold in real time.

What I’ve learned in my experience is that each form of grief requires a different form to hold it.

Photography. Painting. Rollerskating. Running. Writing.

And as you do, ask yourself, does the grief you’re carrying need more than one form to hold it?

With gratitude,
Jen

P.S. If these themes of grief, creativity, collaboration, self-expression sound relevant to your organization or conference, let’s connect. I’m booking speaking engagements for 2026-2027 around the ideas in this book.