Grief Is My Side Hustle: David Ferrugio on Talking About Death Out Loud

David Ferrugio was twelve when his father was killed in the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. Most of us get to grieve in private. David grieved while the whole country watched the same footage every September. He took all of that and built DEAD Talks, a podcast where people talk honestly about death and grief and laugh much more than you’d expect. His podcast and social channels have passed 1M followers, with more than 330,000 subscribers on YouTube, and his first book, You’re Not Dead Yet: How Grief and Loss Can Teach You to Live, came out September 8, 2026 from Jossey-Bass. inklinkl

David and I agree on almost everything, including the radical idea that you’re allowed to laugh in a grief conversation. Bring snacks. In this episode we talk about:

• Growing up as a 9/11 kid, and what it’s like when your private loss is also a national anniversary that shows up on every screen each year
• Why David started DEAD Talks, and what six years of guests have taught him about how people actually grieve
• Writing You’re Not Dead Yet, and what it took to put his own story on the page after years of holding space for everyone else’s
• How joy and grief can live in the same room, and why giving yourself permission to feel good is part of the work

Connect with David

• Book: You’re Not Dead Yet: www.deadtalks.net/book castbox
• Website: www.deadtalks.net chartable
• Instagram: @deadtalkspodcast (show) and @davidferrugio (personal) blubrry
• TikTok: @deadtalkspodcast blubrry
• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCB_jnuH15XMk2Vx_7_-aIAw blubrry
• Facebook: @deadtalkingpod matchmaker
• Patreon (early and ad-free episodes): www.patreon.com/deadtalks cleberg
• All links: https://linktr.ee/deadtalks apple

See David live David joins 29 other grief authors at the Grieftastic Book Fair on November 13 at the Luxe Hotel in Los Angeles. It’s like your middle school book fair, only sadder. Details at www.grieftastic.com.

Connect with Meghan

• Instagram: @meghan.riordan.jarvis
• Grieftastic: www.grieftastic.com
• Book: Can Anyone Tell Me? Essential Questions About Grief and Loss

Danielle Crittenden is a journal who's world was cleaved in two: into the life before her daughter Miranda was found dead in her Brooklyn apartment, and the life after. In this luminous memoir, Crittenden maps the territory of profound loss with the clarity of a foreign correspondent filing reports from a country no parent ever wishes to visit.

She is a journalist, author, and former host of the podcast The Femsplainers, known for her incisive and original commentary on women, family, and modern life. In addition to writing a popular monthly newsletter on Substack, her work has appeared in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Atlantic, and more.

She is the author of five books, including What Our Mothers Didn't Tell Us: Why Happiness Eludes the Modern Woman, praised by Vanity Fair as the work of "one of the most important new thinkers about women and family." Her novel Amanda Bright @ Home was the first modern work of fiction to be serialized in The Wall Street Journal. She is also co-author of the cookbook From a Polish Country House Kitchen, written with Pulitzer Prize–winning historian Anne Applebaum.

Born in Toronto, she now lives in Washington, D.C. with her husband, journalist and author David Frum.

Today Meghan sits down with the extraordinary Paolo Presta to talk about how honoring his beloved mother's life and death informs the passion and purpose he and his husband, Patrick pursue daily.

Paolo has always been a big dreamer. Growing up in a large Italian family in Chicago, his dream was always to be a part of the entertainment business in Hollywood. It seemed impossible at the time, so he knew he needed a little help. For years, Paolo wrote to "The Oprah Winfrey Show" asking Oprah to help him fulfill that dream. Finally, in November of 2004, Oprah Winfrey surprised Paolo at his father's grocery store and gave him a speaking role on NBC's "Will & Grace". His reaction is regarded as one of the greatest surprise moments in "The Oprah Show" history! He then moved to Los Angeles where he transitioned from acting to working behind the scenes in the world of daytime talk shows ("The Ellen DeGeneres Show" & "The Talk"). All of those experiences brought Paolo to fulfill his greatest life-long dream of hosting his own talk show. His greatest mission is to show people that with a big dream and a lot of hard work, anything is possible!