Bryan Marquard

Bryan Marquard, the Globe's obituary writer since 2005, has written nearly 2,600 news obituaries featuring those both well-known—including Pete Frates, who popularized the ice bucket challenge ALS fundraiser, Boston Marathon bombing victim Krystal Campbell, best-selling novelists Robert B. Parker and Anita Shreve and those far less noticed like Stella May Brown, who lived on Boston's streets for 25 years. To prepare these obits, Marquard has engaged in over 10,000 conversations with grieving loved ones, family and friends. He has worked at the Globe since 2000 and previously was a reporter and editor at Newsday on Long Island, N.Y., and at newspapers in northern New England, where he now resides in New Hampshire. At Newsday, Marquard covered politics and government policy, taking occasional breaks from elected officials to write profiles about people such as Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield of the Ben & Jerry ice cream brand. His newspaper apprenticeship began in Vermont at the Rutland Herald, his hometown paper, where he delivered newspapers, worked in the mailroom, and drove a truck before becoming a reporter. The roar of presses rolling at 2 a.m. still rings in his ears. As a novice reporter Marquard’s first front-page story was an obit about a young man who died by suicide in the local jail. The interview with the man's father became the first delicate conversation of thousands that continue for Marquard to this day.