Mrs. Karswell

Managing the imaginary manor house from which our program issues is Mrs. Karswell, whose voice can be heard in our program reading from various historical sources cited. The family misfortunes that have landed Karswell in Ridenour’s service she regards as part of greater plan known to her through interior whisperings and private rituals of dubious validity.

Sarah Chavez

Mrs. Karswell’s alter ego, Sarah Chavez, may already be known podcast listeners with tastes running toward the macabre and mysterious. Taking the 17^th-century Wunderkammer (cabinet of wonders) as inspiration, her 2011-12 podcast The Cabinet of Curiosities explored historic oddities and enigmas. More recently, she has served as co-host along with Louise Hung and Caitlin Doughty of Death in the Afternoon, a program using personal stories and historical accounts to dispel myths about death, dead bodies, and the inevitable fate awaiting us all.

Chavez is executive director of the “Order of the Good Death,” co-founder of feminist site “Death & the Maiden,” and writer-editor of the blog “Nourishing Death,” an exploration of the relationship between death and food, rituals, culture, and society.

Chavez is a leader in the Death Positive movement, using her voice to examine the relationship between ritual, decolonization and death itself. She was the subject of a chapter in Caitlin Doughty’s NYT bestselling book, From Here to Eternity, and she has done research and writing and is the editor for The Order, and has worked on popular YouTube series, Ask a Mortician.

In 2024, she published a book on Death Awareness for children, We Need To Talk About Death.