Life Story Links: August 25, 2026
“If, in good times and bad times and ordinary times, people who may not think of themselves as writers begin to set their stories down, in their own voices, in whichever way they choose, it will make history, make it truer, fairer, richer.”
—Anna Quindlen, Write for Your Life
Vintage postcard captioned “the trail of the earthquake” depicting the burning city of San Francisco, circa 1906, published by American Journal Examiner, from the personal ephemera collection of Dawn Roode.
Our lives in print
LAYING OUT HER LIFE
Amber Pjongluck’s two-meter-long book curates the designer’s entire life in objects, using publishing as a tool to gather, sort, and reorient personal memories in a catalogue of objects past and present.
WHAT TO DO AFTER THE INTERVIEW?
”An oral history is a gift—but it’s also raw material. Whether you shape it into a readable story, a personal podcast, or a written family chronicle, the goal is the same: to make the memories accessible, engaging, and lasting.”
FROM MEMOIRIST JULIA COHEN
“When writing nonfiction, I usually know the beginning and end of a piece but am surprised by the twists and turns the middle takes to connect the two.”
FROM MEMOIRIST ELIOT GLAZER
“The hardest part was excavating my own life for material, living in my own head all the time…. It’s no secret to me that vulnerability always elicits authenticity in art, but I needed reminding.”
FULL CIRCLE
“It was during Covid that [Nick] Haymes found the time to go through all his family negatives and work out what to do with them. ‘It moved me pretty heavily,’ he says. ‘I also had to try to be as impartial as I could because I didn’t want it to be saccharine.’”
Life and death
EPITAPHS-IN-PRINT
“Writing obituaries has persuaded me that everyone has a story to tell; every life, no matter how seemingly mundane, can offer something to grasp.” In Are They Dead Yet?, Sam Roberts “offers a wry, witty, deeply researched survey of the art and history of the obituary.”
AFTER WE DIE
More from Sam Roberts here: “Obituaries, I’m often reminded, are mini-biographies. They are not about death. They reveal how people lived their lives.”
Personal history miscellany
THE GIRL IN THE MIDDLE
A historian spent years tracking down the identity of an unnamed Indigenous girl in an 1868 photo of the Indian Peace Commission, eventually identifying her through a newspaper query that connected her with the subject’s great-great-granddaughter.
HERITAGE RENEWAL
One Omaha family’s annual reunion—500 people strong and going for more than 100 years—is “a celebration of family and history, and a reminder that both are worth preserving.”
SCIENCE NEWS
Neuroscientists left the lab to study memory loss, and the results were surprising: Past research in lab settings may not have accurately captured older adults’ recall.
...and a few more links
The stories dementia couldn’t erase: Spiri Tsintziras honors her mother’s legacy.
Preserving Maui’s stories: UH Center for Oral History lands $538K in new funding
Life’s ‘last universal common ancestor’ may predate life itself
IIT and Adobe researchers explore how AI can bring memories to life
“I read 47 rock memoirs...and ranked them from worst to best”
Short takes
Dawn Roode’s curated roundup for the week of August 11, 2026, includes recent stories on memory-keeping, personal history interviews, and deciphering a life.