Unfinished Business

An inspiring and eminently useful guide to the art of letter writing, including prompts and exercises to help deepen our most important connections and heal old wounds, by a beloved "letter midwife."

We all have unfinished business: thank-you notes we meant to write, goodbyes we never spoke, apologies we never managed to give. Here to help us put those words on paper, letter midwife Frish Brandt provides singular guidance on how to write the five fundamental missives that make up the meaning of our lives: Thank you, I’m sorry, I miss you, I love you, and Goodbye.

With real-world examples from her experience of teaching at Stanford Medical School, Harvard Divinity School, and in workshops and individual sessions around the country, she weaves practical writing prompts with gentle reflections on grief, connection, forgiveness, and closure, offering the tools—and the courage—to help us write what we have long held inside. At once a permission slip, a guidebook, and a lyrical ode to the power of the written word, Unfinished Business is a book to read, to write alongside, and to return to again and again.Frish Brandt teaches essential letter writing at institutions including Stanford University’s School of Medicine, Harvard Divinity School, and at museums and various caregiving associations around the country. For more than a decade, she has worked as a Letter Midwife with people in palliative care and hospice, and through workshops throughout the country. She lives in San Francisco.