Sarah Stewart Taylor and the Art of Death

Interviewed by Sandra Parshall

Sarah Stewart Taylor is the author of O’ Artful Death, Mansions of the Dead, Judgment of the Grave, and Still as Death, featuring art history professor Sweeney St. George. Sweeney’s specialty, funerary art, tends to lead her into the path of murder and mayhem. Sarah lives on a farm in Vermont with her husband and son, and when she isn’t writing she teaches at the Center for Cartoon Studies.

Q. How far back does your love of mysteries go? Did you always know you would write mysteries one day?

A. I loved mystery and adventure stories when I was a child -- Bedknobs and Broomsticks, Kidnapped, The Borrowers, all of those great books. Then I discovered Agatha Christie when I was about ten and fell in love. I read every single one at our public library and then moved on to Patricia Wentworth and Ngaio Marsh in my teens. I didn't read Dorothy Sayers until college somehow, but I was completely hooked. I studied creative writing in college and I never thought I would write mysteries, but everything I wrote seemed to have a body in it, so finally I let myself go in the direction in which I really wanted to go.

Q. Was your first published novel also the first you completed?

A. Sort of. I had a couple of unfinished books, but I guess O' Artful Death was the first book I actually finished and took through the revision process.

Q.Tell us about your path to publication. Was it easier than you expected, or did you hit some bumps along the way?

A. It took me a while to find an agent, largely because I started sending the book out way before it was really ready. I used the submission process, which took a couple of years, as a way to revise and improve the book. I wouldn't necessarily recommend this!

Q. How did you develop Sweeney, your memorable protagonist? Did you sit down and carefully work out her personality, psychology, and background, or did she take shape as you wrote the first book? Is there anything you wish you’d done, or not done, with Sweeney that it’s too late to change now?

A. I came up with Sweeney soon after I came up with her profession -- she's an art historian who specializes in funerary art. I wanted a young woman protagonist and I thought a lot about what kind of young woman would choose to study gravestones and mourning jewelry. A lot of Sweeney's personality traits come from that process. I'm pretty happy with her, though I'm struggling with her a little right now. She needs to stop drinking and I'm having trouble getting her to see this . . .

Q. What aspect of the writing craft have you worked hardest on? What have you learned about writing from reading your favorite authors?

A. Characterization. It all starts with character. That's where plot comes from, that's where theme comes from, that's where suspense comes from, everything. When I think about the books I love the most, they're the ones with those characters who won't let go of you after you close the book.

Q. How long does it take you to write a novel, while balancing the writing with book promotion, family and your day job?

A. Before I had my son, who's now two-and-a-half, I could write a book in nine months or so. Now, it's a bit longer than that . . . sometimes much longer. When he was a baby, I got a lot done. I perfected the art of typing-while-breastfeeding. But no one told me that two-year-olds want your attention all the time . . .

Q. Speaking of your day job, what is the Center for Cartoon Studies and what do you teach there?

A. It's this great college in White River Junction, VT for cartoonists and graphic novelists. I can't draw to save my life, but I teach fiction writing and literature there and I actually just wrote a graphic novel about Amelia Earhart that will be out next year. It's an MFA program and our students are so talented. I love working with them. You can see some of their work at www.cartoonstudies.org.

Q. Is your farm in Vermont a working farm? Shall we add farming to the list of demands on your time?

A. It's a working farm in the sense that we work really hard, but we don't make a living -- or even a profit, I'm afraid -- from it. We raise chickens -- meat birds and layers -- and lambs, mostly for our own consumption. I love it -- there's something so concrete about farm chores that's a great antidote to writing. I'm really into my hens -- I love going out in the morning and collecting eggs. Chickens are really charming and smart. I even have one who comes when I call her name.

Q. In your fourth book a piece of ancient Egyptian funerary art plays a role. In my opinion, nobody has ever done death quite as spectacularly as the ancient Egyptian royals. Have you studied their customs?

A. I loved doing the research for Still as Death. The inspiration for the book was the original King Tut exhibit. I was seven when my Mom went and brought me back the catalog. I loved looking at those pictures of the riches found in the tomb and the supposed curse.

Q. Is there any other culture you feel rivals that one for burial ceremony? Do you have a particular favorite?

A. I'm really interested in Victorian attitudes to death. They were pretty intense about it, those Victorians . . .

Q. I’m sure all your fans join me in hoping you’ll be around for a long time, but have you planned ahead? What kind of tombstone do you want on your grave?

A. I know this sounds strange, but I might not have one at all. A lot of my husband's family members' ashes are buried under a tree in our back yard and I might decide to just hang out with them . . .Either that or I would want something very simple. Although I just read that Merv Griffin's gravestone says, "I will not be back right after this message." Ha ha! I love that. Maybe I'll put a joke on mine.

Q. What’s next for you and Sweeney? Do you plan to continue the series, or do you have something different in mind? What do you want to be doing as a writer in 10 years?

A. I know what happens to Sweeney next and I'm working on her next adventure, but I'm also working on some other stuff. In ten years, I hope I'm still writing the kinds of stories that really interest me and that people will still want to read them.

Q. In parting, what advice can you give aspiring writers who are struggling to complete a book or find an agent and publisher?

A. Write, write, write. Read, read, read. Write some more. In my experience, most people put the cart before the horse and start thinking too much about publication before they've really perfected their craft. You may have to rewrite your first book 20 times before it's ready for submission. It may never be ready. You have to enjoy the whole process. Read good literature. That's the only way to really learn to write. See how the masters do it. And develop a thick skin. This biz is full of rejection, but it's a pretty great thing to be allowed to do for a living.

Visit the author's web site at www.sarahstewarttaylor.com

Inspiration from a Unique Setting

Hailey Lind (Guest Blogger)
Sisters Carolyn & Julie

Writing our third book, Brush with Death (published July 3), proved to be easier for us than writing the first two (Feint of Art and Shooting Gallery). It’s good to know that experience helps the process! We got the idea for the book one summer when Carolyn was visiting Julie in Oakland, California.

Oakland’s a bit of an ugly stepsister to San Francisco, but in truth it’s a beautiful city in its own right: poised right across the bay and rimmed by mountains, it is a shining example of Art Deco architecture and a lively port that date back to the days before the Bay Bridge was built, when Oakland served as the East Bay’s major city. We had driven past the Chapel of the Chimes Columbarium for years, en route to other places, and finally stopped to check it out.

The Columbarium’s original architect, Julia Morgan, stood four feet eleven inches tall but was by all accounts a real dynamo. According to legend, she came from a well-to-do Berkeley family, and lobbied for years to gain admittance to Paris’s lofty Ecole des Beaux Arts, which in her day did not accept women. But after winning several national architecture awards in France, she was finally allowed in.

Morgan went on to design buildings all over San Francisco and the East Bay, though her most famous is Hearst Castle, on the central coast of California. If you haven’t been, it’s well worth a special trip. Newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst spared no expense to create an ornate, over-the-top wonder in the hills overlooking the Pacific Ocean. Whatever Julia Morgan couldn’t find locally she imported from Europe – and we’re not just talking dining room tables or armoires, but entire rooms (walls, fireplaces, and ceilings) from old European estates. She designed the castle around these features, mimicking and embellishing them to create a seamless architecture. It’s really quite stunning.

In the 1920s Morgan turned her attention to converting a tram terminal at the end of Oakland’s Piedmont Avenue into a columbarium. She used leftovers from Hearst castle and incorporated items specifically purchased for the columbarium to create a labyrinthine, mosaic-encrusted, mural-coated eternal resting place. It is almost impossible not to get lost when wandering the corridors – some of which are dead ends (no pun intended) while others lead further into the building.

What writer could wander those convoluted halls and not think of murder and mystery? When Carolyn and I were walking through, we immediately thought: Annie Kincaid would love this place! And out came the ever-present notepad. The rooms have great names: Chapel of Serendipity and Slumber; Gregorian Hall; the Garden of Repose. The ceilings are made of beautiful glass tiles, above which is a crawl space. Some ceilings are skylights that slide open to let in fresh air and sun. Canaries chirp in cages, fountains tinkle, sunlight gleams through elaborate stained glass. We were enthralled.

Next door is a cemetery that is not connected to the Columbarium but is historic and amazing in its own right. Designed by Fredrick Law Olmstead, the man who designed Central Park in New York City, the cemetery’s steep hills offer some of the best views to be found of Oakland, Berkeley, the bay, San Francisco and the Golden Gate Bridge. The higher on the hill one goes, the grander and more expensive are the tombs. Some are so large and impressive they seem more like public monuments than private family markers. Some of the illustrious residents include the Ghirardellis, of San Francisco chocolate fame, as well as Julia Morgan herself, though her name is inscribed in a simple granite block, eschewing the fancy buildings and stained glass.


In Brush with Death this setting inspired all kinds of possibilities, and soon the ideas took shape: encountering a ghoul in the graveyard, something creepy involving the crypts, a chase through the twisting halls of the Columbarium. And it had to be at night, of course. The scenes unfolded in our minds like a movie: Annie trying to scale a long bank of niches but falling to the ground; Annie getting locked in a small toilet (we didn’t go so far as to ask someone to lock us in – that would have seemed weird – but we did shut the door while we plotted Annie’s escape), Annie encountering Michael and getting lost. We also sat at the summit of the cemetery and marveled at the view, as Annie does in the novel with the fictional accountant, Manny.

Brush with Death brings back characters from the first two novels – Annie’s assistant, Mary; Brian, Annie’s devoted but over-the-top friend; Evangeline, from Shooting Gallery; Pete – of course! – and Samantha. Inspector Annette Crawford makes an appearance during a picnic-gone-awry, when Annie’s friends find themselves in the middle of a Goth Naval Battle (this being San Francisco, after all). Annie makes a new friend, and a few new foes, and her on-again, off-again flirtation with Frank heats up even while Michael keeps dropping in to tease and tempt her. And, naturally, Grandfather is a constant presence, giving Annie advice and complicating her life yet again.

It was fun to draw our inspiration for Brush with Death from a real setting. Luckily, the events coordinator at the Chapel of the Chimes, Allison Rodman, was excited about the book and gave us special access to the building. She even invited us to have our Brush with Death release party there –if you happen to be in town, join us! It will be held on Friday the 13th (how appropriate!) of July, at the Chapel of the Chimes on Piedmont Avenue, Oakland, from 7-10 p.m. Details are on our website, www.haileylind.com. We hope you can join us for a celebration in a fascinating, beautiful, real-life setting!