Spade & the Grave

death and burial through an archaeological lens

Tag Archives: writing


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“Graveyards of Eastern Newfoundland” Book Pre-Order is live!

The book cover!

It’s nearly here! After two years of hard work, my first non-academic book is nearly out in the world! “Graveyards of Eastern Newfoundland: The history, stories, and unexpected beauty of 50+ intriguing cemeteries” is now available for pre-order wherever fine books are sold, and is scheduled to be released on Oct 19th, 2026! That’s only 2 months away folks, so pre-order yourself a copy today. My publisher is Boulder Books, a local Newfoundland publisher that is known for their focus on Atlantic Canada, guidebooks, and local history and interest. I’m thrilled to have partnered with them for this adventure, and really appreciate all their support!

Two years ago, at the start of this project, I was interviewed for a CBC article about the book. If you are interested in reading that piece, you can find it HERE.

Of course, there was no way that I’d have been able to cover all of the cemeteries, graveyards, and burial grounds (and yes, there are differences!) in this book. I apologies if I missed your family’s local cemetery! Sites were selected as I did my research based on interesting information that was coming up, my past research for my MA and PhD, and locations that I wanted to make sure visitors got a chance to explore. There were a few sites on the Connaigre Peninsula that I was hoping to include in the volume, but unfortunately I broke my knee in September 2026 in a rock climbing accident and wasn’t able to make it down to several communities that don’t have car access. It would have been hard to wander around when I couldn’t walk!

We are hoping to cover Western Newfoundland and Labrador in another book, however, so if you have any cemetery recommendations that I include in the book, please don’t hesitate to reach out! I’m especially looking for interesting sites along the Northern Peninsula and in Labrador, and would love to hear about any unique and historic burial grounds that are open to the public to visit.

Preordering books is super important these days! It tells the publisher that there is demand for the book up front, and tells book sellers that they might need to order more based on initial sales. It’s great for supporting your favourite authors! Also, you can ask you local library to preorder books as well, to keep that knowledge public and available to everyone!

You can preorder my book at the following locations:

Thank you again to everyone who has chatted with me about sites for this project, helped me track down historic images and information, and helped to make this project possible! Huge thank you to my husband Ian, for going out to take photos for me while I literally couldn’t walk, and to my friends for being hauled on a very specific hike while camping to take photos in the cold while I still couldn’t walk!! And everyone who pre-ordered the book so far, thank you for your support! It really means the world to me, and I hope you find a new favourite graveyard in those pages.

Thank you 🙂


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“A Graveyard Guide to Eastern Newfoundland”

Hello friends, thanks for joining me again! I haven’t had too much time to write fun blog posts recently, as I’ve been working super hard trying to get all the edits completed on my dissertation! I’ve got some fun travel coming up this year though, so I’m hoping to plan some posts around that! Today’s post isn’t about travel or fieldwork though…it’s another publication announcement!

Yesterday, I met with Boulder Books to go over and sign my book contract to write a guidebook to cemeteries and burial sites in eastern Newfoundland. I’m so excited! Boulder is an amazing local publisher here in Newfoundland and Labrador who publishes amazing local guides, memoirs, cookbooks (the Grounds, anyone??), history, and more, and I feel super lucky that they had heard of my work with cemeteries around the province and were interested in going into this project together.

Goats (and a sheep) of New Perlican, at St. Augustine Cemetery #1 (photo by author 2022).
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PhD Updates: Writing Process & Next Steps

Hello friends, apparently it has been a little while since I did a blog post! It’s been quite a busy summer, so I’ll do my best to fill you in. Last post I talked about the presentation I gave in New Perlican at the end of May, about my fieldwork and that portion of my dissertation research to the community, and we had a lovely time! Since then it has been a whorl wind of activity! My brother and sibling-in-law visited, my husband’s parents came out to visit, my parents were here visiting, and between everyone in our families being in the house, we did a lot of fieldwork for Black Cat, and even managed to squeeze in a little camping trip to Terra Nova National Park with some of our friends, which was a lovely break! Also of course, there was a lot of writing happening in there too, which is mostly what I’d like to chat about today.

Lovely fall pumpkins at Lester’s Farmers Market (for ambience) (photo by author 2023).
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Dissertation Writing Updates: April 2023

We’re nearly through April suddenly, friends, and as I look out my office window at the snow drifts covering the old wooden boats in my neighbour’s backyard, which is slowly melting away, I decided to do a little update on how my dissertation writing is going! Lets start with a summary of what I’ve been up to, and then how I’ve been structuring my work and project going forward!

I think this picture encapsulates how excited I was in Boston during my research trip.

My blog has been all conference travel and research trips recently, and I feel like it’s been a very hectic last few months. In September 2022, we attended the Death & Culture IV conference in York (& went on our belated honeymoon), then in October I visited Halifax, Nova Scotia, to do some research at the provincial archives and so a site visit out in Annapolis Royal where I had a great meeting with Parks Canada and Mapannapolis staff! In November, I was doing research at home, and then we travelled to Arizona to visit my inlaws and their new house, and we got to see a few very interesting 19th-century burial grounds in the desert! We didn’t go anywhere in December, but I was frantically finishing my 2nd book manuscript which is now with my editor, and resting over the holidays. In the first week of January, we were packed back up and off to Lisbon, Portugal, for the Society for Historical Archaeology’s annual conference and a few days of exploring post-conference! Portugal was amazing, Ian and I both want to go back asap.

Finally, I had a second research trip in February to Boston, Massachussets and the Hudson River Valley, New York! I went to the Boston Public Library’s Special Collections which was just an amazing experience (both for research and for seeing cool archives), and the Mass Historical Society’s archives while in the city, then site visits to Sleepy Hollow and Albany, NY, as well as a meeting with the archaeology staff at the New York State Museum in Albany. Travel is done for the next little bit, and I’m pretty excited to not be in the Toronto airport for a few months!

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Robyn’s Guide to Master’s Thesis Writing, or, How I Scheduled Everything.

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The victorious, tired grad student!

This is my first post in about a month, so I thought I’d start by updating you all about what I’ve been up to over the last few weeks!

Basically, I finished my thesis draft in the two weeks after my fieldwork was completed (and the last post was written). Guys, I did it, I wrote my thesis!!

I added in the rest of the fieldwork information, updated references and formatting, and wrote all of the discussion and conclusion sections before sending it over to my supervisor for the rest of the edits. When I got the edits back, I made the changes, got everything prepped, and sent it off as a PDF in it’s final form. My thesis is out for review now, you guys! It’s been in review for a few weeks now, and I’ve got my fingers crossed that it comes back to me soon!

As my friend Steph Halmhofer just did a post about how she put her thesis together, I was inspired to do the same. Everyone has different and interesting ways of approaching a project the size of a masters thesis and it’s always interesting to see their processes! I wanted to share mine, along with any advice from my experience that might be useful for future grad students.

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