Media
Press, interviews, and awards
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BuzzFeed
5 Memoirs That Remind Us Of The Meaning Of Family
The Space Between among five memoirs about family.
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Coachella Valley Weekly, Janet Newcomb
The Space Between Book Signing with Dr. Virginia Simpson
A preview of Virginia’s signing at Barnes & Noble in Palm Desert, and the story of how she came to write the book.
Interviews
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Story Circle Network
Story Circle Network, June 2017
A profile by Pat Bean after The Space Between won the Sarton Award. Virginia grew up in Los Angeles between two movie studios wanting to be an actress, and it took decades, a memoir class, and a broken shoulder before she finished the book she had always meant to write.
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Stories that Empower
Stories that Empower, Episode 55
A podcast conversation about how losing her father at twelve shaped her life and her work with grieving children and families, and why writing the memoir was so healing. Virginia’s advice: talk about death while the people you love are still alive, forgive, ask for help, and choose to be happy about the small things.
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Book Club Babble
Book Club Babble, April 2016
Interview with Dr. Virginia Simpson, Author of The Space Between
Kate Newton asks why Virginia wrote so candidly about her mother’s last years. Virginia describes the moment she became her mother’s decision-maker, speaks out against ageism in medical care, and explains why grieving children need honest answers from the adults around them.
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Susan Salluce
Susan Salluce, April 2016
Author Dr. Virginia A. Simpson’s memoir The Space Between
A conversation between two grief specialists who discovered they live fifteen miles apart. Virginia says writing the book taught her more about her mother and herself than years of journaling or therapy, and that she deliberately wrote about hospice, burnout, and the emotions caregivers rarely admit so the book would help other people.
Awards for The Space Between
For journalists
Short bio
Virginia A. Simpson, PhD, FT-(Ret.), is an award-winning author and bereavement care specialist who has worked in the field since 1985. She founded The Mourning Star Center for grieving children and their families. Since 2009, funeral homes throughout the United States and Canada have featured her as their Executive Counseling Director and use grief-support videos she wrote and appears in as part of their online aftercare. Her memoir, The Space Between: A Memoir of Mother-Daughter Love at the End of Life, won numerous awards. She writes the Substack newsletter The Other Side of Young and has completed a second memoir, Breaking My Heart Until It Opened. She lives in California with her husband and their Golden Retriever.
