Saturday, April 19, 2008

Vote now! Polls are open for Society of Professional Obituary Writers contest!

Go to the Awards page of the Society of Professional Obituary Writers Web site, click a category, read the obits and vote for your favorites.

The public polling won't affect the outcome of the official awards, which will be decided by SPOW members only. But the people's choice results will be announced at the May 11th awards presentation at the Professional Obituary Writers Workshop at The Oregonian in Portland, Ore.

Good luck to all who entered, and thanks to all who vote.

Even if you don't vote, you'll want to read these wonderful once-in-a-lifetime stories.

Thursday, April 17, 2008

Review entries for the 2008 Society of Professional Obituary Writers Awards

Some of the best obituaries written in 2007 by some of the best obituary writers in the United States, Canada and United Kingdom have been entered in the first Society of Professional Obituary Writers Awards competition.

Entries are gradually being posted on the SPOW Awards page.

As the entries are posted, the public can view them by clicking the various contest categories.

The text of the entries for "Best body of work" are online now. Some have links to the stories as they appeared in newspapers or online publications. Other links will be added soon.

Although only the votes of SPOW members will count toward selecting official award winners, nonmembers will be able to cast their votes in a "people's choice" poll. The poll will open in the next few days and close on May 7, 2008.

Poll results and SPOW Award winners will be announced during the Professional Obituary Writers Workshop at The Oregonian in Portland, Ore., May 8-11, 2008.

Wednesday, April 16, 2008

Queen of Sisig

Wikipedia is reporting the murder of Lucita Cunanan - at 80. Anyhow, the Filipino dish she invented or at least perfected is fascinating:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sisig

Wednesday, April 09, 2008

NPR report: Newspaper obits vs. online tributes

National Public Radio's "Marketplace" had a segment today - April 9, 2008 - about customized online obits and an already successful Internet entrepreneur who sees the potential for making a killing by posting them for a fee at a central Web site - Tributes.com - which is expected to make its debut in June.

Listen to the report here.

What do you think about that?