Grave Matters
Grave Matters was founded by researcher and author Claire Cock-Starkey, the group largely taking the form of a series of online talks and articles about all aspects of death studies and death culture. Claire invited me to collaborate with her after I took an interest in the group having studied Victorian death culture during my Masters; but aside from the fascinating death cultures of the past, discussing and demystifying death are aims I find important. This role involved devising topics for events, researching participants, writing marketing copy, live-tweeting, and writing and delivering introductory speeches to include both academic and non-specialist audiences.
Project Summary
The aim of the series was to bring together experts and professionals from different aspects of death culture– including clergy, cemetery tour guides, academics, undertakers, researchers of Victorian spiritualism and end-of-life care providers– and to create discussion accessible to a general audience. The serious and occasionally macabre subject matter demanded something of an enthusiastic tone of voice to counteract it in social media posts encouraging prospective audience members, while the blog required a more academic tone.
Brand Voice
These examples of social media posts for ‘Grave Matters’ demonstrate the friendly and enthusiastic tone cultivated by the creator Claire, a tone I carried on in my role; they advertise the event and include details of where to book tickets, times and guests. The blog post is aimed at a non-specialist, but somewhat academic audience, and so takes a more formal, but still accessible, tone, communicating complex information effectively.
Social Media
Blog
Having presented a paper on this topic at the previous ‘Grave Matters’ event, I was asked by the convenor to convert the talk into a blog post. The series was followed by a varied audience of scholars, researchers and death-culture professionals as well as members of the general public. This post balances academic rigour with a more accessible, non-specialist style.
“Shani worked as my co-convener for the Death Studies Discussion group ‘Grave Matters’ for two years from 2022 to 2024. One of her main duties was to write marketing copy for the sessions, appealing to a broad audience from academics to non-specialists. This involved simplifying complex ideas and writing accurate and engaging copy. Shani also regularly looked after the social media account for ‘Grave Matters’, live-tweeting events and creating content for our blog. Shani is an extremely versatile and talented writer, great to work with and super creative. I would not hesitate in recommending her for this position”
— Claire Cock-Starkey | Convenor of Grave Matters