Quote of the Day

"Everybody thinks that they’re important enough to warrant a big obit. But the best obituaries come in sort of understated. An obit’s a story; it’s not just a résumé." --Adam Bernstein, Washington Post

What is lost without obits? Great stories

Although there are wonderful obituaries still published in Australia, dwindling resources have significantly reduced their appearances in newspapers. So what is lost when this happens?

"I believe you lose perhaps the most important journalism instrument, in terms of history. It's the first verdict of society on a life lived. And if you want to know what life was like in times past, go to the obituaries." --Nigel Starck, author of "Life After Death: The Art of the Obituary," recently told ABC Radio Perth.

Click here to listen to the entire interview.

"CBS Sunday Morning" reporting from ObitCon 2019

New Grimmy winners announced at ObitCon 2019

Every two years, The Society of Professional Obituary Writers honors excellence in obituary writing with The Grimmys. Reporters and editors from all over the world submit entries to the contest, which is then blind-judged by a panel of society members.

Trophies were awarded at ObitCon in Washington D.C. last week, but if you were unable to attend, here's the list of winners:

Best long form obit: Aretha Franklin
Written by Hillel Italie, AP

Best short form obit (under 800 words): Sarkis Tashjian
Written by Maureen O’Donnell, Chicago Sun-Times

Best obit of an ordinary Joe/Jane: Ian Jordan
Written by Tom Hawthorn, The Globe and Mail

Obituary writer of the year: Harrison Smith, The Washington Post

Lifetime achievement: Tom Hawthorn, The Globe and Mail

Click here to read the obits that won this year's awards.


--Group photo by Jen Peters. Trophy closeup by Harrison Smith.

An art project: "Remember me"

I’ve been a member of SPOW for a couple of years although I’m not an obit writer. I’m a Montana-based artist who uses anecdotes from family/friend-written obits in my artwork—hand-embroidered found family photographs. Wanting to create empathy in a society that was changing in uncomfortable ways, several years ago I began a new project: “Remember me: a collective narrative in found words and photographs.” To date I’ve completed nearly 750 individual pieces. Here's my artist statement about the project:

The obituary, a­  family photo — these form and record a life’s memories. Both synopsize familiar human experiences — living, loving — and were created for personal use. The sameness and difference exemplified in these personal remembrances create a sense of community and make us aware of our common humanity. 

In fall 2015, I began work on a combinatorial project, “Remember me: a collective narrative in found words and photographs.” This project intimately connects vernacular photographs with anecdotes culled from family/friend-written obituaries. Every United States state and many Canadian provinces are represented. Daily, the work brings me joy so I continue to make new pieces.

I hand-embroider anecdotes from obituaries into found snapshots and studio portraits. The obituaries published (and paid for) in local newspapers and on websites (by funeral homes and international businesses like Legacy.com) are written by those who knew and loved the deceased. Snapshots and studio portraits are taken out of love to remember people, places and times. Embroidery is a decorative technique, and, when done by hand — stitch-by-stitch — an insistent, devotional act. 

In “Remember me” the photos “read” the texts and vice versa, teasing pretension, tragi-comedy and profound truths about the human condition from sentimental artifacts. In seeking empathetic connections, I create representative keepsakes. 

The concept behind my project is to ultimately, intimately, illustrate our collective narrative. We see our personal truths reflected, through words and photographs, in the lives of others. We are reminded, in this exceptionally acrimonious age, of our commonalities — that we are more alike than we are different.

I've attached a few of my favorite pieces and shot of a current exhibition. Please feel free to send feedback and/or contact me with your thoughts/comments about this work. (janedeschner1@gmail.com)

Thanks for looking!

Jane

I post a piece most days on Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/janedeschner1/

You can see many more pieces here:

http://www.janedeschner.com/remember-me.html

http://www.janedeschner.com/more-remember-me.html

http://www.janedeschner.com/remember-me-handwork.html

http://www.janedeschner.com/remember-me-motto.html

http://www.janedeschner.com/remember-me-avid.html

http://www.janedeschner.com/remember-me-labrador-retriever.html

Are obituaries dying out? Not by a long shot.

In January, Beyond the Dash conducted a survey of 600 residents in the northeast of the U.S. about their funeral and end-of-life plans. The results suggested intriguing disparities between expectation vs. reality.

Click here to read the study's results. Be sure to check out section 4, which is focused on obituaries.

The Grimmys Contest - Now accepting entries

The Society of Professional Obituary Writers honors excellence in obituary writing with The Grimmys. Reporters and editors from all over the world may submit entries to the contest, which will be blind-judged by a panel of society members. Trophies will be awarded to the winners at ObitCon 2019, the society's biennial conference.

Grimmys will be awarded in the following categories:

* Best short form obit (under 800 words)
* Best long form obit (over 800 words)
* Best obit of an ordinary Joe/Jane
* Obituary writer of the year
* Lifetime achievement in obituary writing

To enter your obits in the first four categories, click here. Entrance fee is $25/category. Only members of the society may nominate writers for the lifetime achievement award.

Deadline is August 31, 2019.

Announcing ObitCon 2019

ObitCon 2019, the sixth conference of The Society of Professional Obituary Writers, will be held Oct. 3-5, 2019 at the Kaiser Family Foundation in Washington, D.C.

Our current schedule of events is as follows:

On Thursday, ObitCon attendees will enjoy a meet-and-greet event followed by dinner at an area restaurant.

On Friday, attendees will engage in discussions about obits and obituary writing. A continental breakfast and a full lunch will be served. Special guests will be announced soon.

On Saturday, Grimmys will be awarded in the following categories: best short form obit (under 800 words), best long form obit (over 800 words), best obit of an ordinary Joe/Jane, obituary writer of the year and lifetime achievement in obituary writing.

If you'd like to join your fellow writers on the death beat for a three-day conference of professional development and camaraderie, be sure to submit your vacation requests now. Tickets for the conference cost $25 per person. Click here to register.

An obituary distills the essence of a life.

If you're frustrated by the news or the political commentary found on the op-ed page of a newspaper, Marion Winik, author of “The Baltimore Book of the Dead,” has a good suggestion: Turn to the obits page.

"If you are combing the newspaper for profound truths, the obituaries are the place to start. Every one of them presents an inescapable fact of our lives: They end," she wrote in the Los Angeles Times. "Simultaneously, though, obituaries also affirm life and the many varieties it takes."

FMI: Click here.

Ask Maureen. She knows.

Maureen O'Donnell, obituary writer for the Chicago Sun-Times, shared the secret to creating a memorable obit to NPR this week.

"I think it's the little details that make history come alive. You know, this may be the man or woman who lives down the street, but they liberated a concentration camp, or they invented the beehive hairdo or they created the Playboy bunny logo in 30 minutes," she said.

Listen to the full interview here:

Introducing The Afterneath

Did you know there's an entire album of music that's inspired by obituaries?

Jascha Hoffman, a Brooklyn-based journalist and singer, is the talent behind "The Atferneath: Songs from Obituaries." Inspired by the subjects of the obits he penned for The New York Times, the album is filled with tracks about a euthanasia-boosting doctor, a reluctant nuclear scientist, a genocide survivor, a public servant who turned to public suicide, a boy dreaming of flying a model airplanes across the ocean, a love-struck cowboy and someone who experienced a late-career ping-pong comeback.

"...To my surprise, the strongest character on this album has turned out to be the 20th century," Hoffman wrote on his website. "From 1940s wartime hobbies, through the gender wars of the 1970s and tabloid kidnap and murder of the 80s -- you could say the album is a sort of technicolor obituary for an American era, one that is slowly fading."


Click here to preview a few tunes or buy the album on iTunes.

The truth behind obituary writing

Founding SPOW member Kay Powell, the doyenne of the death beat and a woman who has made a "career of saying goodbye," had a lovely chat with Virginia Prescott of "Two Way Street" on Georgia Public Broadcasting last week.

Powell discussed a variety of obits and explained her purpose when writing one: "I wanted to bring the person back to life. I want to learn something about them that I didn't know, the general public probably didn't know, even members of the family didn't know. I wanted to be truthful."

Click here to hear the entire interview.

Which Obit Should Kids Read?

Of all the obituaries you've read - or written - what's one you'd pick for kids to read?

I'm a middle school teacher and an obituary enthusiast. I use obituaries in the classroom to introduce students to people who lived inspiring lives, worthy of emulation.*

We've read about the foster mother to ninety-eight children, the first woman to climb the highest mountain on each continent, and the man who invented the study of flags. (Over fifty obits so far - see them all at passedmadepresent.org.) I'm especially interested in obits that may have received insufficient notice.

I'd be grateful if you shared your recommendation(s) in the comment section below.

Many thanks - and thank you for the work you do!

-Peter Sipe




*For more on obituaries' instructional merit, see my Boston Herald op-ed "Obituaries Teach Life's Lessons."

The intriguing language of obits

The Society of Professional Obituary Writers has long had an international presence. While most of our members live and work in the U.S., many others hail from Canada, the U.K. and Australia.

One SPOW member, Jonathan Semmler, a professor of Portuguese and literature in Brazil, recently published the article, "The Discursive Building of the Brazilian Obituary in the Folha de S. Paulo Newspaper" in the Brazilian scientific journal Forum Linguistico.

Semmler analyzed 2,284 obituaries that appeared in the newspaper between 2007 and 2012 for stylistic, thematic and compositional characteristics. After much study, he described the Brazilian obituary "as an informative and utilitarian journalism genre that uses New Journalism as a stylistic resource in order to soften the mourning of someone’s death by celebrating the person’s life."

Click here (PDF) to read his full paper.

When death notices speak ill of the dead

Richard Chin of the Star Tribune tackled the topic of families purchasing death notices that air dirty laundry and settle scores in newsprint.

"Obituaries say much more than who died and where to send flowers," he wrote. "They hold a mirror up to the living, revealing what we think constitutes a well-lived life. They also present a cautionary tale of what not to do if you want to avoid a postmortem write-up that has you spinning in the grave."

Click here to read his story.

Some of the best obits are about people who should've been known

Harrison Smith, one of the top obituary writers in the U.S. and a SPOW member, appeared on the Remembering the Passed podcast this week to discuss his obit of Ted Dabney.

Dabney, who died on May 26 at the age of 81, was a largely self-taught electrical engineer and the co-founder of Atari, Inc. He developed the basics of video circuitry principles that were used for Pong, one of the first and most successful arcade games, but until about a decade ago, Dabney's achievements in the world of video gaming were largely overlooked.

Click here to read Smith's wonderful obituary of Dabney, then check out the discussion of his life below:

LISTEN: Remembering the passed

Cory Franklin was the director of Medical Intensive Care at Cook County (Ill.) Hospital for 25 years. Since retiring, he's contributed articles to the Chicago Tribune, The New York Times, The New York Post, The Washington Post and The Chicago Sun-Times. Franklin is also the host of the podcast, Remembering the Passed, which discusses the role of notable people who have died recently on our history, society or culture. Here are the latest episodes:

The art of obituary writing

How does a journalist sum up in one story the impact of a lifetime?

Well, for Chicago Sun-Times obituary writer Maureen O'Donnell and columnist/obituary writer Neil Steinberg, it involves connecting the dots between past and present.

"This history is all around us, and it connects everyone," O'Donnell said. "It connects us to the past. It connects us to survival, it connects us to creativity, inspiration."



Watch their full interview below:

Quote of the week

"It is not our intent to honor the dead; we leave the tributes to the eulogists. We seek only to report deaths and to sum up lives, illuminating why, in our judgment, those lives were significant. The justification for the obituary is in the story it tells." --William McDonald

Addressing the forgotten with fashion

Turns out obituaries inspire readers -- and budding fashion designers.

Avalon Hester, a 17-year-old art student in Napa, Calif., was so intrigued by the women featured in "Overlooked," The New York Times' new series on groundbreaking women who did not receive Times obituaries when they died, that she painted portraits of them. Hester then transformed seven of those portraits into a dress:

These are some pictures of my Final Project - a 12 lbs dress made of 7 full scale portraits on canvas. The portraits are both oil and acrylic, and they’re of women from the New York Times Overlooked Obituary Project. Over the 167 year printing history of the New York Times, only 15% of their obituaries have been of women. This piece used that project to talk about our culture of dismissing women, and how the vulnerability of sharing experiences can abolish it. I’m really proud of this project and the way that Oxbow shaped my art throughout the semester. Thank you to everyone who came to Final Show, and helped make this whole semester possible. Photo cred: the amazing @zaelanewcomb @nytimes @nytimesfashion #nyt #newyorktimes #overlooked #art #oxbow #fashion #dress

A post shared by Avalon Hester (@avalon.hester) on May 15, 2018 at 9:19pm PDT