Matt Schudel has been an obituary writer at The Washington Post since 2004. He grew up on a farm in Nebraska and attended country school. He has degrees in English from the University of Nebraska and the University of Virginia. He worked for a now-defunct book division of U.S. News & World Report and was a copy editor for The Washington Post for two years before moving on to journalism jobs in Raleigh, N.C., New York City and Fort Lauderdale, Fla. He has been a feature writer, magazine writer, jazz critic and art critic and has covered everything from murder cases to the space program to wild armadillos. He is the author of a photo-biography of Muhammad Ali’s years in Miami. He enjoys obituaries because there is nothing more interesting than people’s lives.