I must admit, fifteen years ago, I never thought I’d still be writing A Grave Interest.
I started the blog on February 1, 2011, after closing the winery we had owned and operated for more than a decade. Before that, I had spent two decades working in radio and television. (Which also explains why I’ve had dogs named Murrow, Huntley, and Brinkley, along with cats named Hairy Reasoner and Walter Cronkat.)
Neither career path had provided a trail to cemetery writing, but it was something I’d always enjoyed doing. Simply take a Saturday afternoon and spend it at the local city cemetery wandering, and exploring, or heading out to a rural area and cemetery hopping to several small graveyards. It is amazing what you can find.
Usually, I went looking for intriguing symbols, interesting stories, or amazing architecture and sculpture. My husband thought a cemetery blog would keep me busy for a few months. Little did he, or I know just how addictive and fun this would become.
In the past fifteen years, I’ve spoken around the country about cemeteries, symbols, and how to research graveyards. I’ve had two cemetery books published: The Family Tree Cemetery Field Guide (2017- F&W Media) (2019 – Penguin Random House), and Crown Hill Cemetery: The City on a Hill (2025-Sutton Publishing). My latest book, Spring Grove Cemetery and Arboretum: A Step Back in Time (Sutton Publishing), will be out in a couple of months. And yes, another book is already in the works.
During this time, I have also written two full-length plays that resulted from chance encounters with tombstones leading me to dig deeper for the real stories buried there.
Then in 2016, life became wonky, and blog writing became catch-as-catch-can. My first book came out in 2017, and I began a freelance writing career that took up most of my time. I was able to continue speaking, both in person and virtually. In 2023, we left the country life and moved back to the city. Life has a way of getting complicated, but with the move behind us, and after a short foray into the bourbon world, I am back home in the cemetery.
And after fifteen years, it’s time to up my game.
A Grave Interest now has its own webpage https://agraveinterest.com/, which features info on the speaking topics I present, a place to keep up with my books, and a collection of all 357 blogs, although that section is still being reformatted because the blogs did not cross over as they should have. (If you come across one that needs repaired/reformatted, let me know. It’s an ongoing process.)
Plus, there’s more to come, including a podcast and a subscription program with extra goodies. For now, A Grave Interest is reestablishing itself as the premier cemetery blog. We’re back to publishing a post every Friday, heading out into more cool cemeteries, visiting intriguing museums, and checking out some fascinatingly spooky, and paranormal sites.
Thanks to all of you for reading the posts, telling me your stories, sharing your favorite cemetery photos, and inviting me to present at genealogy conferences, libraries, and historical societies across the country. I love giving presentations about cemetery research, sharing tidbits about interesting cemeteries, taking tons of cemetery photos when I visit another place, and telling the occasional story about spooky cemetery occurrences.
I look forward to sharing more cemetery stories with you this year.
Joy
