We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Rosie Grant a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Rosie , thanks for joining us today. We’d love to hear about a project that you’ve worked on that’s meant a lot to you.

During the pandemic I started cooking recipes I found in cemeteries. It started when I was in graduate school for Library Science at the University of Maryland. I took a class where I had to create a TikTok account from scratch. That same summer I was interning at a cemetery and learning about the different types of gravestones people might be memorialized with. I used to think just names and dates were put on stones but now the skies the limit about what people put on a gravestone. That’s how I discovered there are multiple graves around the world with family recipes on them. I started researching and cooking through these, and it’s been an exploration of food, death, and how someone wants to be remembered.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers

I started TikTok @ghostlyarchive while getting my MLIS. The class made us focus on how networks work and the power of storytelling. While I started the account posting about my cemetery internship, I now post stories more generally about cemeteries, graves, and memorials. The goal is to focus on the variety of ways people choose to be remembered, and hopefully make others interested in visiting or even get involved with their own local cemetery (maybe donating, taking a tour, or volunteering at it). A lot of cemeteries are at risk so I think the more its local community is connected to it the better.

I visit cemeteries most Saturdays and create my videos on Sundays, then post throughout the week depending on where I just visited.

When it comes to cooking gravestone recipes I do a lot of Find a Grave, Atlas Obscura, and general crowdsource research to find more graves, cook the recipe, and learn about the person who left it behind.

What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?

Death is a taboo topic in many places, but I think it’s important to not shy away from the fact we’ll all die someday, so it’s important to have conversations with loved ones about how you and them want to be remembered. It’s so uncomfortable at first but gets easier overtime. I’m afraid of “the end” so this is my way of grappling with my own mortality and even on some level seeing it as a celebration of life.

It’s most rewarding when I hear from people that they were inspired to take a tour of their local cemetery or even in some cases get involved with preserving it. A lot of cemeteries are at risk and I think reminding people about the people buried there is so important for them to continued to be preserved and taken care of. I wouldn’t want to be buried in a place that gets bulldozed years later because people forgot about it.

We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?

For Tiktok: have a niche topic (and I think the more niche the better) and post everyday in the beginning. Literally everyday. I first didn’t want to because of how much work that seemed, but it paid off, and the videos aren’t long. Pay attention to what does well and what others in your niche are posting. Of course do all the tricks like use trending songs, hashtags, etc, but also just interesting content goes a long way.

Contact Info:

• Website: linktr.ee/ghostlyarchive
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ghostly.archive/
• Other: Tiktok https://www.tiktok.com/@ghostlyarchive

Image Credits
By Rosie Grant.