What I think of obit writing is you'll be holding to the facts. You can't change them, you can't exclude certain ones that may be unattractive, but you are allowed to try and make a good piece of art out of those facts.

Welcome back to Working, I'm your host, June Thomas.

And I'm your other host, Kristen Meinser.

Kristen, it is such a blast to be talking with you today. You are one of my favorite podcast hosts from Wayback and always a lot of fun to chat with.

But before we get lost in Revery, who's voice did we hear at the top of the show?

Well, before I tell you, I have to tell you you are also one of my very favorite podcast hosts, and I'm so excited to talk with you today.

But to answer your question, Margulite Fox, storied New York Times obituary writer, that is who we're hearing from today on the show.

And why did you want to speak with her?

Well, I have always been fascinated with obituary writing.

On the one hand, I know for a lot of people it can come off as kind of morbid, but on the other hand, it's also such noble work, you know, summing up what's important about a person's life, what's memorable about a person's life.

Also, as a writer, I'm always just fascinated with how other writers do their job, because, you know, every kind of writing is different, but also there's overlaps, right?

Yeah, absolutely. And that is what we like to talk about here on working.

I'm super excited to hear that interview, but I don't know.

Something tells me that you probably have an extra segment exclusively for slate plus members. What will they hear?

Oh, you know, I do. So during our slate plus segment, we'll hear about some of the obituary's Margulite is most proud of writing, including ones that she believes played a role in correcting the public record, which I'm just going to say.

I'm just going to say here now, I agree what they did play a very big role in doing that.

Wow. Well, if you're a member of slate plus, you will hear that at the end of the episode. And if you aren't, I got to tell you, it's super easy to join as a slate plus member.

You will get to hear extra segments on this show and others, such as the waves and culture gabfest.

You'll get bonus episodes of podcasts like big mood, little mood and slow burn.

And of course, you will never hit a paywall on the slate site to learn more go to slate.com slash working plus.

All right, let's hear Kristen's conversation with Margulite Fox.

Margulite Fox, thank you so much for joining us today.

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