Although the baby boom generation and its offspring are much more open and fatalistic about the inevitability of death than previous generations, it does not mean individuals are better prepared. To help them with that task, Brenau University graduate Holley Kelley has penned a book to guide people along the way.

“It is easy to procrastinate (on executing plans) when the book isn’t interactive,” she said. “Without the reader’s contributions to the book, it is only words on paper. I wanted the workbook to give the reader a voice.”

Brenau University will host an autograph party for the end-of-life planning expert and her first book, “Sunrises and Sunsets: Final Affairs Forged with Flair, Finesse and FUNctionality” on Feb. 5.

The free program will be from 12:30-1:15 p.m. in the Trustee Library, at 625 Academy St., in Gainesville.

Kelley, who graduated from Brenau Women’s College in 1987 with a degree in journalism, started working on her book as her thesis project for the university’s Master of Applied Gerontology program, which she completed in 2013. The informal, informative, matter-of-fact guide provides tips for planning estates and funerals, completing advance medical directives and even developing a bucket list of activities to do before kicking the bucket.

Kelley, who lives in Toney, Ala., offers advance care consulting services through the business she founded, Latter-Life Planning Institute.

Her book, published last year by Robert D. Reed Publishers, has received positive reviews from SpaceFlight Memorial Systems CEO Gary Gartner, “The Coming Widow Boom” author James F. Thompson Jr. and the Rev. Laura Summer Truax, senior pastor at LaSalle Street Church in Chicago.

“Holley has developed a way of approaching and preparing for life’s final stages in a comprehensive yet caring way,” Bonnie Kin, the Brenau psychology professor who founded the gerontology graduate program, said in the foreword of the book. “The information contained in this book is groundbreaking — finally, someone has let death and dying out of the closet and into the mainstream. Finally, someone is willing to discuss it in an open, straightforward manner.”

For more information, visit http://window.brenau.edu/articles/holleykelley or http://rdrpublishers.com/products/sunrises-and-sunsets-final-affairs-forged-with-flair-finesse-and-functionality.