Category Archives: Deaths Garden Revisited

2022 Cemetery Round-Up

The primary cemetery project I worked on last year was the Kickstarter and publication of Death’s Garden Revisited: Personal Relationships with Cemeteries.

The book was the culmination of a dream I’ve held for decades. It collects 40 powerful personal essays — accompanied by glorious full-color photographs — to illuminate the reasons people visit cemeteries. Spanning the globe from Iceland to Argentina and from Portland to Prague, Death’s Garden Revisited explores the complex web of relationships between the living and those who have passed before.

I could not be prouder of how this beautiful book turned out. You can get a copy of your own from Blurb.com.

I’ve been working on another collection of my own cemetery travel essays, a sequel to Wish You Were Here. Still Wish You Were Here will be a collection of 35 (or so) cemeteries, exploring graveyards from the California Gold Country to Rome, Singapore, and Tokyo. I’d hoped to have it finished by the end of 2022, but family trouble complicated that. The paperback will be out this summer.

Lectures:

I only gave one lecture in 2022. I presented “Using Crowdfunding to Support Cemetery Projects” during the online conference for the Association for Gravestone Studies on 6/9/22.

Short Cemetery Nonfiction:

I had a bunch of short pieces published, most of them in connection with promoting Death’s Garden Revisited.

Jennifer Brozek let me stop by her blog to tell her how I fell in love with cemeteries: http://www.jenniferbrozek.com/blog/post/2022/03/23/Tell-Me-Loren-Rhoads3

I wrote a post for E. M. Markoff’s Tomes & Coffee blog to explain some of the choices on the Death’s Garden Revisited playlist: http://www.ellderet.com/emmarkoff-blog/2022/4/6/guest-post-the-deaths-garden-revisited-playlist-by-loren-rhoads

TheHorror Addicts Guide to Life #2 republished my essay about the world’s most haunted cemetery.

I assembled a list of five of “The Best Books about Cemeteries” for Shepherd.com. Please check it out: https://shepherd.com/best-books/about-cemeteries

Podcasts/Radio:

The Curious State podcast interviewed me about “What Makes a Cemetery a Tourist Destination?” Airdate: May 23, 2022. You can listen to it here:  https://curious-state.simplecast.com/episodes/what-makes-a-cemetery-a-tourist-destination-rmU_cWWu

The podcast of The National Funeral Directors Association, Remembering A Life, interviewed me about my cemetery work. Airdate: October 12, 2022. Here’s the link: https://rememberingalife.libsyn.com/episode-23-adventures-in-cemetery-travel

Horror Addicts featured me and Death’s Garden contributors Francesca Maria, E. M. Markoff, and Brian Thomas on their season finale. Airdate: October 15, 2022. You can listen to the playback here: https://horroraddicts.wordpress.com/2022/10/15/horroraddicts-net-217-loren-rhoads-cemetery

Marsha Casper Cook and Trish Wilson invited me to their Michigan Avenue Media podcast to discuss Death’s Garden Revisited. Airdate: July 7, 2022. You can listen to the replay here: https://www.blogtalkradio.com/michiganavenuemedia/2022/07/07/author-interviews-michigan-avenue-media

Interviews:

The Fabulist magazine did a really great interview with me, connecting the Death’s Garden project to my Morbid Curiosity magazine: https://fabulistmagazine.com/a-personal-relationship-with-cemeteries-loren-rhoads-in-conversation/ They reprinted the interview in The Pocket Pixelarium in August 2022.

Angela Yuriko Smith invited me to her Lit Up video series for one of the best cemetery conversation I’ve ever had. Check us out at https://youtu.be/U4Ziv2b2nlU or watch it below.

Lex Vranick of Write and Wine interviewed me about cemeteries and the Kickstarter: https://writeandwine.com/blog/an-interview-with-loren-rhoads

Naching T. Kassa interviewed me for the Horror Writers Association newsletter for a piece called HWA Legends: Loren Rhoads, Mistress of Morbid.

Naching interviewed me again for the Horror Addict podcast’s Chilling Chat: https://horroraddicts.wordpress.com/2022/10/14/chilling-chat-episode-217-loren-rhoads/

Blogger Jo Nell Huff interviewed me about the Kickstarter and the contributors to Death’s Garden Revisitedhttps://coastalcrone.com/2022/04/07/deaths-garden-revisited-kickstarter-interview-with-editor-loren-rhoads/

Anthropologist and horror writer Paul Stansfield interviewed me about how Death’s Garden Revisited fits in with all my other books: http://paulstansfield.blogspot.com/2022/04/interview-with-publishereditorwriter.html

Horror author and secret romantic Robert Holt interviewed me about cemeteries and travel: https://holthorror.wordpress.com/2022/04/11/deaths-garden-revisited-interview-with-editor-loren-rhoads/

Miscellaneous Good Things:

The Association for Gravestone Studies Book Club kicked off January 2022 by focusing on 199 Cemeteries to See Before You Die. I was thrilled to be able to join the discussion at the end.

The Washington Post quoted me (and a bunch of other cemetery bloggers) in “Why We Love Visiting Cemeteries” by Andrea Sachs. https://www.washingtonpost.com/travel/2022/10/24/cemetery-congressional-woodlawn-green-wood/

The Washington Post quoted me again in “This Woman Bakes Recipes She Finds on Gravestone Epitaphs: They’re to Die For” by Sydney Page. https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2022/10/24/gravestone-recipe-epitaph-ghostly-archive/

I was almost interviewed about cemeteries at the last minute by the BBC! It was the day after we’d moved into our new house and I didn’t yet know where my microphone was so, in the end, I was relieved that they booked someone else. I had a really nice interaction with the showrunner, though. Maybe this year?

Doing my first kickstarter this year was one of the most intense months of my life. Death’s Garden Revisited raised more than $5k. The campaign was chosen by Kickstarter as a Project We Love.

I hosted my first Ask Me Anything on Twitter. So many great cemetery questions! I look forward to doing another this year.

Dr. Sharon Pajka hosted a Cemetery Happy Hour. A handful of Death’s Garden contributors created cocktails to celebrate their favorite cemeteries. Check out this very fun and short video: https://youtu.be/H5BN8WWZq-c

Finally, the contributors to Death’s Garden Revisited helped me put together a playlist of their favorite cemetery songs. If you’d like a soundtrack to your cemetery reading, you can listen along on Spotify:  https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4S0255SPm7grf5NShTbLgT?si=ea4a5b5bb3d94d17

Talking about Cemeteries

It’s that time again, when everyone’s fancies turn to cemeteries. I’ve been out there, talking up the joys of visiting graveyards.

Horror Addicts focused the last hour of their October podcast on Death’s Garden Revisited. Horror hostess Emerian Rich (also a contributor to the book) interviewed me, then contributors E.M. Markoff, Francesca Maria, and Brian Thomas read tastes of their essays. If you’re trying to get in the mood for the season, check it out.

The National Funeral Directors Association interviewed me about 199 Cemeteries to See Before You Die and Death’s Garden Revisited for their podcast, Remembering a Life.

The Washington Post asked me for some context for recipes appearing on headstones: They’re To Die For.

199 Cemeteries inspired another Washington Post journalist to begin exploring cemeteries. Along the way, she talked to a lot of taphophiles I’ve met via twitter. You have to love her headline: Why We Love a Good Cemetery.

In and around all of that, I’ve been getting the copies of Death’s Garden Revisited in the mail to the contributors and the Kickstarter backers. If you’d like a copy of your own (and who wouldn’t? It’s gorgeous!), you can click on the book cover above and be taken to Blurb.com. It’s available in hardcover and oversized paperback now. The ebook version should be coming soon.

Death’s Garden Revisited is available now!

I’m so excited to announce that my next cemetery book is available now.

Death’s Garden Revisited collects 40 powerful personal essays that explore 60 cemeteries — accompanied by 80 full-color photographs — to illustrate why people visit cemeteries. Spanning the globe from Iceland to Argentina and from Portland to Prague, Death’s Garden Revisited explores the complex web of relationships between the living and those who have passed before.

Genealogists and geocachers, travelers and tour guides, anthropologists, historians, pagan priestesses, and ghost hunters all venture into cemeteries in these essays. Along the way, they discover that cemeteries don’t only provide a rewarding end to a pilgrimage, they can be the perfect location for a first date or a wedding, the highlight of a family vacation, a cure for depression, and the best possible place to grasp history. Not to mention that cemetery-grown fruit is the sweetest.

You can see a preview below:

You can order your copy of the book in paperback or in hardcover directly from Blurb. The ebook is coming soon.

Contributors and Kickstarter backers: The books arrived earlier than expected. I’m getting those into the mail as soon as I can!

Death’s Garden Revisited

I’ve just now finished the final proofing for my next book, Death’s Garden Revisited: Personal Relationships with Cemeteries. Today we’ll order a paperback proof to check the quality of the photos one last time, then I can order the books and start fulfilling the Kickstarter pledges. The book will be available to everyone else in October.

It’s such an exciting time. The genesis of this book began in 1994, when my friend Blair gave me a box of photos he’d taken in cemeteries. Automatism Press published the first book inspired by them in 1996 and ever since, I have wanted to do a sequel. This book exceeds all my expectations.

I cannot wait for everyone to see how beautiful this new book is. I knew the text was going to be powerful, emotionally affecting, and life-affirming, but Automatism Press had never done a full-color book before. The photos truly are all I had hoped.

If you are interested in preordering a copy, you can drop me a note via my bookshop and I will let you know when the books are available.

In the meantime, enjoy some of the photos from the book! My phone isn’t really doing them justice, but you can get the idea.

Old Stirling Cemetery, photographed by Ann Bollen.

Unnamed graveyard, photographed by Greg Roensch.

St. Stephen’s Cemetery, photographed by Emerian Rich.

The Kickstarter’s Last Day

It’s finally here! Today is the final day of Kickstarter campaign for the cemetery book I’m editing, Death’s Garden Revisited.

At this point, 100 people have backed the project, ensuring that the black & white photos will be upgraded to color, I’ll be able to commission a couple of essays to fill out the book, and there will be more cemetery photos than I originally planned. This book is going to be so beautiful!

Backers are giving me the ability to finish the sequel to my cemetery memoir, Wish You Were Here: Adventures in Cemetery Travel. Everyone who donated — from the $5 level on up — will receive a copy of the new ebook. I am really excited to find out what they think of it.

The best reward — at least in my mind — is that every backer will be thanked inside Death’s Garden Revisited. I’m thrilled to be able to acknowledge their faith in me.

In case you haven’t seen it, this is the video in which I talk about the book:

Sometimes the video embeds get stripped out of the email versions, so you can watch it at this link: https://youtu.be/gxg-Hjh8-bo

This project has been a dream of mine for 25 years. I’m so excited that it’s going to become a reality this year.