HOW TO WRITE AN OBIT

posted by James Reel

    A bear at Reid Park Zoo has succumbed to liver cancer, and the Arizona Daily Star's Tom Beal has written a charming obituary that follows all the rules while also revealing far more about the bear's personality than do the usual sugar-coated farewells to human beings. Read the obit Tom wrote, and then for samples of typical warts-and-all English obituary, go here and here, and read this overview published a few years ago in Slate.