Like members of an outlaw cult, obituary writers have been gathering annually in quiet, out-of-the-way places for the last seven years to discuss their craft and commune with fellow newsroom misfits.
The most recent confab of grim writers, the 7th Great Obituary Writers International Conference, was held June 16-18 in Bath, England. It was the fifth such conference I attended.
The conferences are the brainchild of Carolyn Gilbert, founder of the International Association of Obituarists. Gilbert, who is not a journalist, has penned obituaries for friends and relatives for placement as paid newspaper ads. The former teacher from Dallas started the annual gatherings -- the first in Archer City, Texas -- for fellow obit aficionados. She invited newspaper obit writers and authors of obit-related books to join them.
The word "International" did not appear in the conference name in the summer of 2000 when an Internet-traveling colleague at The Plain Dealer (Cleveland, Ohio) told me to check out www.obitpage.com. I had just missed the Second Great Obituary Writers Conference, featuring keynote speaker Porter Shreve, author of "The Obituary Writer," in Jefferson, Texas.
By conference No. 3 in Las Vegas, N.M. -- not Nevada -- obit pros dominated the program. I was one of them.
Being there reminded me of rock band Blind Melon's music video for the song, "No Rain." In the video, a chubby, bespectacled 11-year-old girl, wearing a black-and-yellow bumblebee outfit with a tutu and stocking cap, is largely ignored as she does her little dance at an audition. The little girl, who coincidentally bears a strong resemblance to me at that age, then leaves the theater and dances for other folks she meets along her way. They all look at her like she's crazy or like they wish she'd just go away.
Dejected, she walks to where the sidewalk ends and looks through the bars of an iron gate. Her countenance brightens. The gates swing open. She sees a group of happy people, wearing black-and-yellow bumblebee stripes, tutus and stocking caps, dancing ecstatically in a meadow. She joins her kindred spirits in dance. At last, she has found a place where she fits in!
That's how I felt when I walked into the Plaza Hotel in old Las Vegas in late May 2001 and met dozens of folks who love obits as much as I do.
I immediately bonded with obit writers and editors, journalism professors, researchers and obit enthusiasts, whom Kay Powell of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution calls "Fobits," short for Friends of Obits. These are "People who love obits, collect obits, scrapbook obits, mail me obits that I wrote 10 years ago because they thought I might like it," Powell told me at this year's conference.
Fobits make us obit writers feel like rock stars.
At Conferences 3 through 7, we shared tips on summing up lives, learned about different ways of presenting obits and laughed about experiences peculiar to our trade. We heard dissertations from scholars, paged through scrapbooks of obits saved by obit fans, learned about Google.com's alt.obituaries group and rubbed elbows with funeral directors. As Gilbert and her conference became more widely known, the event attracted writers from Canada, England and Australia.
Because of some travel mishaps -- a canceled flight, a rescheduled flight delayed so long that I missed my connecting flight and finally a flight that landed at a different airport, three hours by train away from my destination -- I knew I would be incredibly late for this year's conference. But I trudged on, believing it would be worth all the trouble.
It was.
Old friends, who worried about my unexplained absence, embraced me when I arrived that Friday, an hour after the end of the second day of the three-day conference. I spent that evening and much of my free time Saturday getting caught up on what I'd missed.
Nigel Starck, an Australian journalist and scholar, who is turning his doctoral thesis on contemporary obituary practices into a book, pointed out differences in obits printed in the United States, Great Britain and Australia. He told the obit gang that American newspapers generally run obits as soon as possible after the person's death, while their United Kingdom counterparts might wait several weeks.
"Australia swings between the two," Starck said.
American obit writers generally show respect for the deceased by using courtesy titles, Starck said. Even serial killers get the treatment. Aussie obits tend to have a sentimental strain.
The British have been known to poke fun at the dead.
Hugh Massingberd, retired from The Daily Telegraph of London, is credited with "the creation of a style largely about pathos and understatement," said Andrew McKie, the paper's current obits editor. "His guiding spirit was P.G. Wodehouse."
Massingberd's successors try to keep that style alive. The great man himself amused conference delegates with readings from Daily Telegraph obituary anthologies and from his autobiography, "Daydream Believer," before my arrival. Massingberd, the late Richard Pearson of The Washington Post and the late Alden Whitman of The New York Times were inducted into the inaugural class of the International Association of Obituarists Hall of Fame.
Uri Dromi, director of International Outreach for the Israel Democracy Institute in Jerusalem, columnist for The Miami Herald and writer for the Israeli daily, Haaretz, said he writes obituaries about "the silent heroes of nation building," Jews who immigrated to the fledgling nation of Israel and "made a difference." He also pens obits for "people who happened to be there when big things happen."
Dromi often draws obituary information from oral history projects done by the deceased's grandchildren for their civics classes. It's the next best thing to conducting the interview himself -- before the person dies.
Whenever possible, Philip Jones, a freelance writer from Australia, interviews the not-yet-dead for stock obits that may be completely rewritten by the time his subjects die.
Freelancers are regular obit contributors to publications in England, Australia and Canada. Many pen obits -- some in advance -- for notables in such specialized fields as medicine, classical music and the military.
"Willing authors" -- friends of the dearly departed or writers who want their names associated with dead celebrities -- frequently contribute obits to Spanish newspapers, according to Isabel Corona, an academic who is doing a study of obits in Spain. Such obits can be shameless attempts for self-promotion by the writers. The papers distinguish willing-author obits from reporter-written stories by putting the headline in italics.
The not-necessarily-famous dead are immortalized by friends and family in column-length stories titled "Lives Lived" in Canada's Globe and Mail. Obits editor Colin Haskin, who gave a presentation about the use of photos in obituaries, said that "Lives Lived" is his paper's most popular feature.
Andrew Losowsky, a 27-year-old Englisman who lives in Spain and writes freelance technology articles for such publications as The Guardian and The Times of London, talked about obits in cyberspace. He encouraged obituary writers to use the Internet to make their stories more meaningful to readers.
"Make the obit the start of a journey," Losowsky said.
He suggested that newspapers provide Web links to online guestbooks and letters to the editor about the deceased. He recommended sharing links to the late musician's most famous songs or the recently deceased business executive's company Web site.
"Hear the song; Read the official site," Losowsky said. "If you're talking about an African dictator and how he's changed the map, show the map."
He spoke of the Spokesman-Review of Spokane, Wash., which offers bereaved families online multimedia tributes, featuring a pan-and-scan slideshow of photos of the deceased with the voice of a loved one in the background sharing personal memories.
"It makes it that much more powerful," Losowsky said. "You can hear the emotion in the voice, how much the person cared for this person."
Jim Sheeler of the Rocky Mountain News tugs heartstrings the old-fashioned way -- through the written word -- in his stories about Coloradans killed in the line of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan. He told his conference peers that he hands a freshly penned condolence letter to the late servicemen's families to try to gain their confidence when he knocks on their doors. He asks for e-mails, letters, journals, saved phone messages and tape recordings made by the fallen military veteran to help him frame his stories.
Letters written by Army Pfc. Jesse Givens, the first soldier from Fort Carson (Colo.) to die in Iraq, became a key part of a Sheeler-composed story. Sheeler read an excerpt of a Givens letter from his story:
My family: I never thought I would be writing a letter like this, I really don't know where to start. I've been getting bad feelings though and, well, if you are reading this...
I'd tell you more about what Sheeler said, but I'd need another box of Kleenex.
For the most part, we laughed at the conference. We learned. We were inspired.
Approximately 40 people attended the Bath conference (not all at one time). A few stayed only one day. About half make their living writing obits.
The conference will return to New Mexico in 2006. Details will be announced at www.obitpage.com.
Alana Baranick, winner of the 2005 ASNE Award for obituary writing, is an obit writer for The Plain Dealer, and chief author of "Life on the Death Beat: A Handbook for Obituary Writers." Jim Sheeler and Stephen Miller of the New York Sun, whom Baranick met at earlier obit conferences, are co-authors of her book for Marion Street Press.
