I have to admit I’m fascinated by death – which is probably understandable for a writer of true crime and crime fiction – but I’m especially fascinated by everything that follows death.

The picture above – forgive me for its “shot through glass” quality – is of a death crown, or angel crown. I’m writing a piece for CrimeReads about these bizarre artifacts of death, so I’ll save most of my explanation of death crowns for that, but I can tell that death crowns are a wreath, basically made of feathers from a feather pillow.

Folklore, especially Appalachian folklore, tells us that death crowns were found in the feather pillows of people who had recently died. I’ll tell you more in that upcoming CrimeReads article.

I’m not sure where my interest, even fascination, with death and funerals and cemeteries began. It probably had something to do with being exposed to so many funerals of extended family members when I was young. Complete with open caskets. It probably also had to do with the macabre stories and movies that I grew up on. I’ve written about that previously for CrimeReads.

Without quite realizing it, I’ve turned this interest in death into fodder for my fiction writing. I’ve written short stories about cemeteries and my crime novel “Seven Angels” is about a small town in Tennessee that was literally built around the graves of early 1800s settlers. The graveyard that is central to the story is based on my dad’s family graveyard down here in Tennessee. My main character is a woman who returns to the town of Seven Angels to help run her family’s funeral home and ends up as county coroner. The book won the Mystery Writers of America Hugh Holton Award for Best Unpublished Novel and I’m going to be working to get it out there in front of people in 2024.

I’m not sure I’ll ever get over my fascination with death and what follows, and I’m not sure I want to. It’s been more than a fascination for me. It’s been an inspiration.