Anna Byrne

A cancer diagnosis at age 32 shaped Anna Byrne’s understanding of dying. As a catalyst for human connection, it also led to over a decade of work as an end-of-life educator, speaker and author. Her memoir, Seven Year Summer—a finalist in the Whistsler Independent Book Awards—is used as a training tool in hospices; her writing has also appeared in qathet Living, Young Adult Cancer Canada, and Feminism and Religion: How Faiths View Women and Their Rights (Praeger, 2021). Byrne holds degrees in Gerontology, Psychology, Education, and Theology, with a thesis on Medical Assistance in Dying. She delivers keynotes, workshops, and training for organizations such as the Canadian Cancer Society, the BC Hospice Palliative Care Association, and Vancouver Island University. She lives in qathet, British Columbia, on the traditional territory of the Tla’amin Nation, where she coordinates services for a hospice society and co-founded Community-Supported Dying qathet, an initiative to equip communities to care for those who are aging, ill or grieving.