Giving Up the Ghost: Writing, Suicide Loss, and Finding Your Voice After Grief with Samantha Rose | 066

In this deeply moving and unexpectedly warm conversation, Blair and Alana sit down with Emmy-nominated television producer and ghostwriter Samantha Rose to talk about grief, suicide loss, creativity, and the complicated ways we stay connected to the people we love after they die.

Samantha opens up about writing her award-winning memoir, Giving Up the Ghost, which chronicles the loss of her mother to suicide and the surreal, tender experience of channeling her mother’s voice while writing the book. What started as a way to survive grief became a path to reclaiming her own voice after years of helping others tell their stories.

Together, the three explore the strange overlaps between grief and creativity, the pressure to “do grief correctly” (spoiler: there is no correct), and the quiet magic that shows up when we give ourselves permission to listen.

Yes, they also talk about signs from beyond, vivid dreams, spiritual tattoos, ghostwriting secrets, and that unforgettable moment they all met at a grief conference involving a sound bath and a choking incident. Because grief is heavy, but laughter still finds a way in.

What You’ll Hear in This Episode

1. What it’s like to write a memoir after losing a parent to suicide
2. How channeling a loved one’s voice can be healing, grounding, and terrifying
3. The complicated identity shift that happens when your parent dies
4. The emotional intimacy of ghostwriting and why it mirrors grief work
5. Vivid dreams, spiritual experiences, and staying connected after loss
6. Gentle, honest advice for anyone grieving a parent lost to suicide

This episode holds space for the complexity of suicide grief with care, honesty, and compassion. If this topic feels tender for you, please listen gently and take breaks as needed.

If this episode resonated, share it with someone who needs permission to grieve out loud, write it out, or trust the voice that’s been quietly waiting inside them.

Grief changes us. Stories help us survive it. And sometimes, giving up the ghost is exactly how we find ourselves again.

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About the Guest:

Samantha Rose is an Emmy award-winning television producer and a New York Times, USA Today, and internationally bestselling ghostwriter of nearly twenty titles, some that have been selected as Reese’s Book Club and Target Bookmarked Picks and featured in the Wall Street Journal, Oprah.com and Harper’s Bazaar. She is the principal of Yellow Sky Media, an editorial agency in Petaluma, California, where she lives with her son. Her newest release, Giving Up the Ghost, was awarded “Best Memoir” at the 2025 San Francisco Book Festival, and is her first book written under her own name.

Links: https://www.yellowskymedia.com/

⚠️ Content Note: Some episodes may contain themes that could be distressing. Please take care of yourself while listening, and don’t hesitate to seek support from a mental health professional if needed.

About the Hosts: 

Blair Kaplan Venables is a British Columbia-based grief and resilience expert and coach, motivational speaker and the Founder of The Global Resilience Project. Her expertise has been featured on media platforms like Forbes, TEDx, CBC Radio, Entrepreneur, and Thrive Global. She is named the Top Grief and Resilience Expert of the Year 2024 by IAOTP. USA Today listed Blair as one of the top 10 conscious female leaders to watch and she empowers others to be resilient from stages around the world. 'MyStory,’ which is a television show available on Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV+ and Google Play, showcases Blair's life story. She is the host of the Radical Resilience podcast and specializes in helping people strengthen their resilience muscle using scientifically proven methods and guides grieving high performers with her Navigating Grief Framework. The Global Resilience Project’s award-winning book series are international bestsellers, and her fourth book, RESILIENT A.F.: Stories of Resilience Vol 2, will be published in January 2025. In her free time, you can find Blair writing, in nature, travelling the world and helping people to strengthen their resilience muscles. 

Links:

https://www.blairkaplan.ca/

https://theglobalresilienceproject.com

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https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-global-resilience-project 

blair@blairkaplan.ca 

Alana Kaplan is a compassionate mental health professional based in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. She works in the mental health field, and is a co-host of the Resilient A.F.  podcast. Fueled by advocacy, Alana is known for standing up and speaking out for others. Passionate about de-stigmatizing and normalizing mental health, Alana brings her experience to The Global Resilience Project’s team, navigating the role one’s mental health plays in telling their story.

Engaging in self-care and growth keeps her going, and her love for reading, travel, and personal relationships helps foster that. When she’s not working, Alana can often be found on walks, working on a crossword puzzle, or playing with any animal she sees.

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