The Grief Memoir That Became a TV Pitch, a Sex Podcast and the Book Everyone Gives When Someone Dies
Kelsey Chittick wrote a book about her husband dying at a trampoline park while she was on a spiritual retreat in Jamaica, and somehow it's one of the funniest books I've ever read. But what I really wanted to talk to her about is what happened after.
Because the book, Second Half, became the thing people hand to someone when the worst has happened. It led to Zibby Owens inviting Kelsey to co-host a podcast about sex that lasted five years. It led to a grief group in her basement that ran every two weeks for three and a half years and is now being pitched as a scripted TV show. It turned her into a speaker, a life coach and someone whose phone rings every time somebody in the South Bay loses the person they love most.
Kelsey didn't write this book to build a career. She wrote it so her kids would know the truth about their dad. They still haven't read it (too embarrassing, apparently). But the book did what books do when they're real: it opened every door she didn't know existed.
- How a death-and-mourning memoir became the go-to gift when someone dies (and led to a five-year sex podcast)
- Why the grief group in her basement is being pitched as a scripted TV show
- The moment Kelsey knew she was done being "the dead-husband woman" — and what comes next
- The cover design that looked like a vagina (her mother-in-law loved it)
- What it means to write something so true to your voice that you can hand someone the book instead of reliving the story
