The New York Chapter of Mystery Writers of America spent Sunday in Woodlawn Cemetery (in the BRONX, baby!) with a graveyard experts, best-selling authors,  and a reporter from the New York Times. We even ended up in an article, in which I am quoted. Click here to read.

The daylong writers’ workshop was offered to our members and open to the public, and we hope to make this an annual event.

I’ve always enjoyed cemeteries, and not in terms of researching a place of final repose. Cemeteries are quiet, green, filled with art; in short, parks, albeit, blissfully, ones with no one skateboarding, blasting music, or barbecuing. And so I was very happy when Clare Toohey and Susan Olsen came to the board with the idea of doing this workshop at Woodlawn, where Susan works as director of historical services. I knew it would be a boon for the chapter:  our members get the 411 on cremation and burial as well as advice from big-time writers (Lawrence Block, Hilary Davidson, Lyndsay Faye, and Heather Graham among them),  all with a fantastically and appropriately morbid backdrop. At the same time, I knew that beyond that it would be a fun getaway, day-out-in-nature and quiet, stimulating for me. So I’m very grateful to Clare and Susan for pulling the whole thing together.