Karla Wheeler co-heads the Public Relations & Marketing Committee for the Open to Hope Foundation. A former newspaper reporter and editor, she is Founder and President of Quality of Life Publishing Co., a national publishing firm specializing in grief support books and a growing number of publications to help hospices provide their multidisciplinary care.
Quality of Life is the publisher of the physician newsletter, Quality of Life Matters; and booklets for families, “When Death Is Near: A Caregiver’s Guide;” and “When You Are Grieving: A Guide to Understanding Loss.” Karla is the author of grief support books for adults and children and bereavement columns for newspapers and magazines across North America.
Several of Karla’s family members have experienced a “good death,” thanks to hospice, including her 54-year-old husband. Following his death, their daughter Jenny wrote a teen-to-teen book, Weird Is Normal When Teenagers Grieve. Karla and Jenny enjoy bringing their messages of hope as a mother-daughter team traveling nationwide, speaking at professional grief conferences, and to community groups. A longtime hospice volunteer in Southwest Florida, Karla has visited with hundreds of dying patients, providing bereavement follow-up care to grieving families.