Poet, essayist and funeral director Thomas Lynch has published five critically acclaimed collections of poetry, four books of essays and a book of short fiction. His most recent books are The Depositions: New and Selected Essays (W.W. Norton, 2019), and Bone Rosary: New & Selected Poems (Godine, USA, 2021; Bloodaxe Books, UK, 2022). A novel is forthcoming. His first four collections, Skating with Heather Grace (1987), Grimalkin & Other Poems (1994), Still Life in Milford (1998) and Walking Papers (2011), were published by Jonathan Cape in the UK, and his fifth collection, The Sin-Eater: A Breviary (2012), by Salmon Press Poetry in Ireland.
Thomas Lynch has written for The Times, The Irish Times, New York Times, Newsweek, and Harper’s. His memoir The Undertaking: Life Studies from the Dismal Trade (1997) won the Heartland Prize for Non-Fiction, the American Book Award, and was a finalist for the National Book Award. He has taught at Wayne State University Department of Mortuary Science, University of Michigan Graduate Program in Writing and Emory University Candler School of Theology. His work has been the subject of two documentary films, PBS Frontline’s The Undertaking and Cathal Black’s Learning Gravity. He worked as a funeral director with the family firm Lynch & Sons in Milford, Michigan from 1973 until his recent retirement, and now divides his time between his home on Mullett Lake in Northern Michigan and his ancestral home in Moveen, Co. Clare, Ireland.
Author photo: Joe Vaughn
