Bonaventure Cemetery Interview with Ghostwriter Maggie Mills

Sipping martinis while sitting on Conrad Aiken’s headstone at 9am on a cool spring morning was never on my radar, yet there I am with the photos to prove it. Surrounded by trees dripping their Spanish moss, Azalea bushes pushing out the last of their blooms and the faintest scent of wisteria catching the breeze coming in off the river. Oh, and the dead resting undisturbed in their graves. There were a lot of those around because I was in Bonaventure Cemetery and that’s what cemeteries do.

Summoned to that place by the lure of another adventure, I found myself sitting across from a mysterious lady named Maggie. She’s a ghostwriter, and whenever I say that, most folks think she writes about ghosts, when in fact it’s more accurate to say that she is a ghost. She’s the most popular author you’ve never heard of because that’s how ghostwriters operate. They take a person’s idea, conduct several interviews to get a sense of that person’s communication style, then proceed to craft a narrative using their voice and a hundred thousand words or so later, put that person’s name on the cover of the book as the author.

Wipe that shocked expression from your face, this practice has been going on for a long time.

A lot of the public figures like politicians and celebrities you see with their memoirs, were written by a ghostwriter. They inspired the stories and supplied key details, but they didn’t write the words themselves.

Back to the cemetery.

Early in March I was reaching out to several potential podcast guests when I came across Maggie’s info. Over the years, I have talked to a lot of people who have lamented that they’d love to write a book, or people tell them they should write a book about their story, but they have no idea where to start. I thought Maggie would be a great fit to speak to those people and hopefully inspire them to get their story out into the world.

The day after sending the podcast invite, I received an email from Maggie. She had done a little light stalking, I mean, research on my website and saw that my all-time favorite book is Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. She disclosed that she happens to live in Savannah, just down the road from Bonaventure Cemetery, which plays major part in the book. (for me at least)

“hold my beer, I’ll be right over!”

I don’t even like beer, but that was my first thought and essentially my response to her email. We set a date to do an in-person interview at the cemetery on a Monday morning, in hopes of avoiding the tourists. On the Saturday evening before the interview, we met up to go on an after-hours tour of Bonaventure. Our guide reminded me of the story of Conrad Aiken and how he and his wife used to sip martinis several days a week at his family’s plot. (not strange at all) He even put in his will that his headstone was to be made in the shape of a bench so poetry lovers could sit and enjoy a cocktail.

Also, can we talk about martinis for a minute? Wow, I had no idea there was a beverage I could dislike with more passion than beer, but again, there I was sipping my first martini, my face contorting most unpleasantly at the flavor. The only light at the end of that tunnel was the olives. They were delicious.