IAMA professional eulogy writer. AMA.

I am a zoolander fan as well.

I also work for Philip Morris.

I feel like if you stay dedicated to this novelty account, you will eventually strike karma gold. Keep at it, friend.

I'm open to that, I suppose, if enough people want to read it. I am concerned that such a thing may come off rather bitter, as I am fairly disenchanted with the US as of late and, moreover, I am beginning to think this "Dream" we all strive for is completely illusory... if any writers on reddit would care to be considered for some eulogy writing work, I would accept a submission along these lines.

soooooooooo dramatic. clown.

It was done in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

Not quite, eulogies are generally fluffed up versions of a person's life. Whereas the speaker for the dead let it all hang out... so to speak.

Eulogywriter should read this if he hasn't already, great book for anyone

After we have been engaged to write the eulogy, we conduct a rather lengthy phone interview with the prospective eulogist, during which time we ask questions and just allow them to talk. With their permission, we record the phone call. The very best eulogies transpire from multiple interviews with family members so that we can pick out common themes in their description of the person.

I am the "writer" in my family and among my group of friends (I've done other forms of ghost writing). One day, a friend I don't really know all that well asked for my help in writing a eulogy for his wife that passed unexpectedly and tragically, as we was barely able to leave his bed, let alone compose a speech. It went very well, so I began marketing myself to funeral homes (this was in 2008). Late last year, I put up a website and things have taken off a bit. I have gotten away from doing a lot of the writing myself, as I tend to get very emotionally involved to where I can feel totally emotionally drained after a writing. I am male and I have found that female writers are actually the best at this and I outsource to a number of gifted female writers.

I would like to write my own and have it delivered by a friend or loved one, though I have not made any sort of preparations for this. All I have done so far in consideration of my own mortality is give my best friend access to my facebook account so that in the event of my untimely death she can login and pretend to be "Zombie EulogyWriter" and fuck with people.

I have and I think that the best eulogies are written by the person dying themselves and delivered by a loved one or friend. Of course this is not always possible, though I will say that some of the most satisfying eulogies I have worked on were when we were able to work with the soon-to-be-deceased themselves. In one case, I worked very hard on the eulogy of a man who was dying of late stage lung cancer. We actually struck up a friendship and I ended up flying to his funeral a year later and was able to hear the eulogy we collaborated on, as delivered by his son. Fuck, I just teared up in revisiting that. That was intense and probably the beginning of when I started outsourcing more of the writing to people less apt to becoming so emotionally involved.

Where did you go to school?

For the most part, you don't. The overall "feel" of the eulogy tends to be bleaker in the case of a suicide, but as for actual reference to the fact that suicide occurred... it is rare that a client would want that. A lot of times it will take a less direct form...such as referencing a need for people to be compassionate to those suffering from mental illness, for example.

I personally only write eulogies these days, but most of my writers do various forms of speech writing, to include that which you may be in need of. If you'd care to message me your info, we can dialogue about it... if nothing else, I am more than happy to help out a fellow redditor with some informal advice.

Most of the eulogies we write are largely secular in nature, even those that are being presented in a largely religious funeral, since often it is the job of the eulogist to ad a more human, secular feel to a memorial service and the religious sentiment is left up to a member of the clergy. But to better answer your question... you just leave out mention of the after-life altogether and just focus on the glorification of the person's life.

Do you stick to a certain writing style or rules, such as: don't use the passive voice or don't use certain descriptors, etc...?

Not really...I think sometimes my own use of passive voice horrifies some of the MFA's I work with, but I believe it actually can be useful at time. I think that if I retain that which is native to me, the overall end result is better. Therefore, often my job in managing the process is matching the right ghost writer with the client. For instance, my writing style is very verbose and pedantic, so when we get a highly educated, pain in the ass sort, I tend to be the most appropriate writer to match with them because I am a highly educated pain in the ass

Do you use a common structure and framework for every eulogy?

We really try not to, but most eulogies follow a chronology of a person's life and that tends to lead to some duplication, but my role, inter alia, is in quality control and to try and minimize too much commonality between separate work products

Will you refer your family to a eulogy-writing service for when you die?

Ideally, I will write my own and have someone deliver it.

I just answered this above in my original post, but there have been three celebrity eulogies that were all equally awesome.

I just added this to my original post, but we've had three substantial celebrities of note.

Unfortunately I cannot since I technically do not own the rights to them. Ours is a true "work made for hire" arrangement and we surrender all copyrights - moral rights included - to the work upon completion. Even if this were not the case, it would be bad for business for me to do so. I have considered doing some "spec" sort of eulogies for populating the site, but it is really hard (for me at least) to create one without any sort of actual prompting. My apologies. All of our writers do have writing samples available, however.

That is rare, though we do from time-to-time. Our function is a true "work made for hire" arrangement, whereby we function as an extra set of hands for the client, so if they want that sentiment included then we do it. That said, most of the time they want our help not in including that sort of thing, but rather in including that sort of thing delicately, with a degree of finesse.