How do you want your loved one to be remembered?
An obituary is the final written account of a person’s life. A well-written obituary is a work of art – something to be treasured by families and friends.
​
​It’s difficult for a layperson to write an obituary that has elegance, sensitivity and grace – especially during a time of grief and confusion.
​
​Lives Lived: A Professional Obituary Writing Service allows families to engage with a professional writer to create a unique tribute. I love interviewing families, taking their memories, and turning them into a story that captures the essence of a person’s life. The obituary I write in consultation with the family becomes their property and the family decides how and where they will share it.
About Jane.
​I am committed to helping families and individuals make that last impression with sensitivity, style and accuracy.​
​
​I worked as a journalist for 25 years after graduating from Columbia University. I wrote many obituaries, of famous people and regular folk.
​
-
Award-winning journalist and communications professional whose work has appeared in The New York Times, USA Today, Reader’s Digest and regional publications including The Journal News.
-
Experienced obituary writer and contributor to newspaper “Lives” column.
-
Graduate: Columbia University School of Journalism
-
Member: Society of Professional Obituary Writers
Lives Lived in the Media
“A well-written obituary is a short story about a person’s life, a story as rich and interesting as the person it describes,” says Jane Lerner, owner of Lives Lived, a professional obituary writing service. “The story should capture the essence of an individual — joys, sorrows, triumphs, and milestones. A good obituary should illustrate how much the person meant to others.”
"People have to do something entirely new that they've never done before at their moment of grief,” says Jane Lerner, a former journalist who wrote scores of obituaries and a column for a newspaper in New York state and then turned her experience into a business called Lives Lived: A Professional Obituary Writing Service.“