Friendship, Grief and Second (and Third, and Fourth) Chances: Paige Harbison's Destination Funeral

In this episode, I talk with Paige Harbison about her new time loop novel Destination Funeral!

Listen to our whole conversation to hear about:

• How Destination Funeral uses being literally stuck in time to explore being emotionally stuck. The characters are trapped with unresolved relationships, old resentments, and versions of themselves they haven’t fully escaped.
• Why “What if?” is Paige’s favorite starting point for storytelling. Rather than setting out to write magical realism or a particular genre, she follows a compelling premise and lets the story dictate where it needs to go.
• How grief and humor can exist in the exact same moment. Paige explains that the combination of heartbreak and comedy in her books isn’t a carefully calculated tonal balance—it reflects the way she experiences real life, where devastating and hilarious moments often coexist.
• Why writers sometimes discover what their books are about only after writing them. Paige talks about allowing characters, themes, and even her own unresolved feelings to emerge unconsciously rather than trying to engineer every meaning from the beginning.
• Why friendship breakups deserve the same emotional weight as romantic ones. Paige talks about how friendships can be some of our longest and most defining relationships—yet we have almost no cultural roadmap for grieving them when they end.

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Gare Billings @gareindeedreads

Steph Lauer @books.in.badgerland

Halley Sutton @halleysutton25

Brian Watson @readingwithbrian

MacKenzie Green @missusa2mba

Erin Ashley @bellametaphor