Life Story Links: March 5, 2024

“I want to explore what it means not to know, not to ever be able to know. Life is dead ends, conflict, dissonance, gaps, great clouds of confusion and misunderstanding. Do I tell a story, or do I tell you how it feels to have only the remains of one? The first is certainly a better story. But the second is better history. Which do I really want?.”
—Sallie Tisdale

Vintage poster with original artwork by Frank S. Nicholson produced some time between 1941-1943 by the Work Projects Administration; image courtesy of the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, Digital Collection. The posters were designed to publicize exhibits, community activities, theatrical productions, and health and educational programs in seventeen states and the District of Columbia between 1936 to 1943.

Reflecting on loss

FIRST PERSON, BEAUTIFULLY
“What if I had told my father a real goodbye? What if I had told everyone the truth? What if I had let people see me cry?” Emily Ziff Griffin writes about missing her father’s funeral as a teenager.

WHAT THEY SAID
“My father remained in a coma after I arrived in Patna. And then he died. If my father had been conscious, I suspect he would have a lot to tell me.” Amitava Kumar on finding solace in the words of others.

Memoir miscellany

THE THOUGHT THAT COUNTS?
Last week I wrote about why I turned down an offer from a mainstream publisher to write a memory prompts journal—and what I recommend instead of a fill-in-the-blank life story book.

ON VOICE AND VISION
“I have spent a lot of time imagining my daughter someday reading the book, and a lot of emotional energy reminding myself that I can’t know what she will think of it.” Leslie Jamison, author of the new memoir Splinters, in conversation about her writing process.

Personal stories make history

NO BOX TO CHECK
“I never check the ‘white’ box. I understand why it exists, historically and logistically, but I have never identified as a white person.” Will the 2030 census reflect those who fall under a Middle Eastern and North African category differently?

LIVING HERITAGE
For decades, UNESCO has been on a quest to save the world’s intangible heritage—everything from Ukrainian borscht to Jamaican reggae. But what does it mean to “safeguard” living culture?

VOICES, STORIES, HISTORY
“One mother recalls a lost son’s parting words at Auschwitz: ‘Mom, you’ll see, we’ll meet again.’” U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum gets trove of intimate stories of loss and survival.