speaker

Talks and workshops ranging from
20 minutes to all-day and weekend.

  • The Language of Dying: How to recognize and understand the unique metaphors of language and gestures

  • What Dying Can Be: Lydia’s Last Year

  • Map of Dying: Understanding the Threshold Events that Guide the Process

  • Non-ordinary Experiences: Understanding Pre-Death Visions and After-Death Communication

  • Helping Children When Someone They Love is Dying

Sample Speaking Topics

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Featured Podcast: Talking About Death Brings Calm to the Living.

In this episode, Martha Jo speaks with Mirek Čepický, Communications Director of Nadace rodiny Vlčkových (The Vlček Family Foundation), a Czech philanthropic organization founded by Katarína and Ondřej Vlček, creators of the Zlatá rybka initiative.

Their conversation centers on the foundation’s work supporting children with serious illnesses and their families, with a focus on advancing pediatric palliative care in the Czech Republic. It draws from a one-day talk Martha Jo delivered in Prague for grief and bereavement professionals—including social workers, psychologists, counselors, funeral directors, and foundation staff—on end-of-life care and grief.

The result is a calm, deeply reflective conversation about dying, grief, ritual, laughter, and love that does not end with death. Without avoidance or unnecessary softening, it names what people experience at the end of life, why death frightens us, and what is lost when silence replaces conversation. By giving death a human face, the episode invites greater honesty—and greater calm—for the living.

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From the Audience

“If you want it done right, with anything in life, leave it to the professionals. Martha Jo Atkins is a pro with a unique set of skills, subject matter expertise and championship-level message delivery skills.”

“From 30 years of studying end-of-life care, I think this talk was the best ever.”

“I so appreciate your wonderful sense of humor, rich capacity for narrative, and your bravery in diving into this area that sorely needs to be explored and better understood.”

“This morning I experienced pure, exquisite joy. Martha Jo led our class through a guided imagery process that allowed me to reconnect in a deeply profound way with my mother.
Mom passed away last June and yet we were together again experiencing pure bliss. There were no spoken words. There was only Love.”

Upcoming Events

  • K smrti dobrý festival

    November 7 - 9, 2025

    Ostrava, Czech Republic

    A festival about death and its presence in our lives.

    RSVP

  • Vlček Family Foundation, Children's Bereavement Training

    November 12, 2025

  • End of Life Retreat

    November 14 - 16, 2025

    Ostrava, Czech Republic

Want me to speak or lead a workshop at your next event?

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