About Us
Learn more about each of our stories and how we've navigated grief and sibling loss.
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Lynn Shattuck
When Lynn Shattuck was 24, her brother Will died from heroin and alcohol. Experiencing the loss of her only sibling altered her life irrevocably; while her peers continued to grapple with the usual ups and downs of young adulthood, she was catapulted back into her childhood home, paralyzed by grief.
Lynn has been publishing essays on the topic of sibling loss for more than a decade. She’s been a paid columnist at Elephant Journal for ten years; several of her essays on the topic of grief and sibling loss have gone viral. Her writing has also appeared on The Huffington Post, Human Parts, Vice, The Fix and Al Jazeera.
Lynn holds a Master of Individualized Arts from Goddard College’s Transformative Language Arts program. Her work in the fields of grief, loss and trauma has included co-facilitating a support group for grieving teenagers, training police officers on best practices when delivering a death notification, training crisis response volunteers and facilitating expressive writing groups for people living with cancer as well as those experiencing grief.
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Alyson Shelton
Alyson Shelton writes about women across multiple mediums and genres. She’s written about a multi-faceted, superpowered heroine in her comic Reburn, and uncovering childhood secrets in Eve of Understanding, the award-winning feature she wrote and directed. In her award-winning screenplay, The Night We Met, she tackles a psychological thriller centered around women’s sanity in the 1960’s. She is working on a memoir in essays and her writing has been published widely at outlets including The New York Times, Ms., The Rumpus and more. Her generalist knowledge and approach make her the perfect fit for her podcast, Fine Cut, in which she and a guest take a deep dive into one scene of the guest’s choosing. You can learn more about her through her website, www.alysonshelton.com and her Instagram @byalysonshelton where she hosts a popular weekly Instagram Live series inspired by George Ella Lyon’s poem, Where I’m From, where she’s hosted over 100 writers and creatives, including George Ella herself, who is a great supporter and fan of Alyson’s work.
Alyson’s brother Michael died, in a hiking accident, in the summer of 1984. She was 10. She remembers hearing a lot of, “Well, you have three other brothers.” And “He’s only your half-brother,” instead of, “I’m sorry.” Or, “How devastating.” There were no conversations or resources, just the abiding grief. When Alyson first read Lynn’s writing about sibling loss, she felt seen and paused to consider how much losing Michael shaped her life. Getting to know Lynn and other siblings, working on this anthology and creating a resource she always wanted feels significant and life-changing.
Molly Fowkes
In 2014, Molly lost her older brother, Jimmy, to brain cancer. His battle with the disease lasted over eight years. She was 17 and he was 21 when he passed away.
From a young age, Molly knew her passion for helping others would be within the healthcare space. After pursuing degrees in Product Design and UX Design, she began working as a designer in healthcare, with a specific focus on cancer. Her first role was working for Blue Note Therapeutics, a prescription digital therapeutics company singularly dedicated to transforming mental health care for cancer patients.
Molly is currently a designer at MD Anderson Cancer Center, where she sits at the intersection of design and healthcare to solve complex problems and generate long-term, meaningful impact for those directly impacted by cancer - patients, caregivers, families, and clinicians.
In addition to her work, Molly is passionate about creating art through photography and painting. See our Art page to see some of her recent paintings depicting grief and sibling loss.