Happy New Year! In this week’s episode, our storytellers ponder the big questions about life and death. Part 1: When Shannon Turner’s high school friend passes away from a rare virus from a monkey, she contemplates her sense of purpose. Part 2: After a traumatizing experience with a dead body leaves journalist Erica Buist agoraphobic, she embarks on a journey to understand how other cultures handle death in hopes of healing. Shannon M. Turner is a professional storyteller and story coach, as well as a writer, dreamer, and nerd. She is the Founder/Creative Director of StoryMuse, offers storytelling techniques as a tool for personal discernment, team building, and community development in effort to cultivate a world where all stories are heard and honored. She is the producer of Carapace, Atlanta’s OG monthly true, personal storytelling event and has an MFA from Virginia Tech. Read more at StoryMuse.net. Erica Buist is a writer, journalist, lecturer and author of the book This Party’s Dead. Between writing plays, audio drama and short films for Stockroom Theatre Company and managing the social media for literary nonprofit Tupelo Press, she is slowly writing her first novel. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices