Life on the Death Beat: A Handbook for Obituary Writers

Alana Baranick has been writing obituaries for The Plain Dealer in Cleveland, Ohio, since 1992 and loving it. When she won the first of many statewide awards for obit writing, she also won accolades from co-workers who wrote in an in-house newsletter: "The honors only formalized what her colleagues already knew: Alana is one of the best at what she does." The Pittsburgh-area native has been writing for newspapers since 1981, walking the death beat since 1985 and speaking about obit writing to university journalism classes, obit-writers conferences and meetings of professional journalists, funeral directors and civic organizations since 1993. She has two adult sons. She gets her kicks by visiting Clevelands in other states, meeting the locals and picking up stones for her collection of "Cleveland Rocks."

Stephen Miller is an obituaries editor for the New York Sun in Manhattan. He formerly worked as a technologist for a bank located in the World Trade Center, escaping from the 80th floor of the south tower on 9/11. He subsequently decided to pursue a career in writing instead of financial technology. He also has done graduate work in anthropology, and worked as a reporter at newspapers in the New York metropolitan area. He lives in Brooklyn with his wife and young son, who are cheerful reminders that not all the important people in his life are dead.

Jim Sheeler has written obituaries regularly since 1996, when he began his narrative obituary features of everyday people for the Boulder Planet. In 1998 he began a weekly feature called "A Colorado Life" in the Denver Post, which he continued to write for the next four years. Now a general assignment reporter with the Rocky Mountain News in Denver, he has won more than 50 awards from professional groups including the Colorado Society of Professional Journalists, Colorado Associated Press Editors and Reporters, and Best of the West. His work has also appeared in the Houston Chronicle, the Philadelphia Inquirer, and the Dallas Morning News. Sheeler was born and raised in Texas and moved to Colorado in 1986 to attend Colorado State University. He has since logged thousands of miles throughout his adopted state in search of Colorado lives, and A Colorado Life. A collection of his obituaries will be published in 2005. For information, access www.jimsheeler.com.