The Glamorous Side of Doing Research?

By Penny Warner


Smart writers set their books on fabulous cities, exotic jungles, or romantic beaches, knowing they’ll have to go there to “research” the place for their books. But I somehow end up in a cemetery. That’s because my latest murder mystery, HOW TO PARTY WITH A KILLER VAMPIRE, features a film wrap party for big-time movie producer Lucas Cruz. Cruz is celebrating his latest release—a vampire parody film—by throwing a lavish party in a graveyard. It’s a pretty gloomy venue for Presley, but she’s hoping to make it so much fun that partygoers won’t even notice there are more dead than living guests…

Meanwhile, I get to hang out in Colma, AKA the “City of Souls,” to do my research. Nestled in the hills just south of San Francisco, Colma claims the deceased population outnumbers the living, 1.5 million “souls” to 1,600 residents. The city was founded as a “necropolis” in 1924, and offers 17 cemeteries for humans, plus one for pets. Apparently, the city of San Francisco ran out of room for its dead, evicted all existing cemeteries in the city limits, and relocated them to the south. The motto there: “It’s great to be alive.”

What better setting for a book featuring vampires.

Truthfully, I found cemetery city to be fascinating. After checking out the shops that offer fancy granite headstones and flower marts with “easy to install” bouquets of floral arrangements, I headed for the pet cemetery called Pet’s Rest, (not to be confused with Stephen King’s Pet Sematary, where the pets actually came back to life after they were buried.) This pet cemetery is filled with tiny headstones that mark the names of well-loved pets—“Shadow” the rabbit, “Gyzmo” the dog, “Mr. Furry-Face” the cat. They’re buried here, along with the occasional bird (“Tweety”), fish (“Ahab”), lizard (“Godzilla”) and monkey (“Darwin”), plus thousands of other well-loved companions.

Next I headed for Hills of Eternity and located the grave of Wyatt Earp, the famous lawman. There are lots of well-known names resting in Colma, like William Randolph Heart (he’s at Cypress Lawn), Joe DiMaggio (at Holy Cross), and Emperor Norton (Woodlawn). There was even an award-winning musical filmed in Colma called, appropriately, “Colma: The Musical.” Not many towns can claim the same.

When I finished my research, I concluded that Colma is certainly a peaceful place, with its immaculately kept lawns, colorful floral bouquets, and quiet pathways. It’s a nice place to visit, but I wouldn’t want to live there. And I really need to start setting my books in places like Paris, Hawaii, or at least the Amazon Jungle.

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Penny Warner has published over 50 books for both adults and children. Her latest is a mystery series featuring event planner, Presley Parker, and set in the San Francisco Bay Area. HOW TO HOST A KILLER PARTY, features a wedding on Alcatraz, HOW TO CRASH A KILLER BASH, offers a Murder Mystery Party at the de Young Museum, HOW TO SURVIVE A KILLER SÉANCE, features a Séance Party at the Winchester Mystery House, and HOW TO PARTY WITH A KILLER VAMPIRE is set in Colma, the City of Souls. Her middle-grade mystery, CODE BUSTERS CLUB: THE SKELETON KEY, was just published.

Contact Penny Warner at www.pennywarner.com or pennywarnerink@yahoo.com.