Life Story Links: May 6, 2025

“This isn’t a tell-all because some of what I’m telling you is what I don’t know. I’m offering the absences, too—the spaces I know aren’t empty, but I can’t see what’s inside them. Like the white spaces between stanzas in a poem: What is unspoken, unwritten there? How do we read those silences?”
—Maggie Smith, You Could Make This Place Beautiful

Vintage postcard depicting a faded photograph of two daisies postmarked from Bari, Italy, in 1906, from the personal ephemera collection of Dawn Roode.

Between generations

A SURPRISE ORAL HISTORY
“I was impressed that my father put this project together with such care, resurfacing stories my family had long repressed. I was also dumbfounded that he somehow had zero follow-up questions when my uncle said he was ‘attacked by Malaysian pirates.’”

TIME CAPSULE
“Imagine opening a letter from your younger self, a glimpse into the dreams and anxieties of a fifth-grader. That's exactly what happened to a group of graduating seniors.”

SHARING, OR OVERSHARING?
“I share my life on social media; I share my life in my newsletter; now, I’ve shared my life in my book. [My son] is a massive part of my life, and because of this, for the first time in my decades of public oversharing, I have a reason to censor.” Arianna Rebolini on writing about your kid in memoir.

Our own personal histories

WHAT’S STOPPING YOU?
“I’m scared,” the prospective client told me immediately after calling me about undertaking a personal history project. So we delved into their why—and their fears. Then I decided to share some of these common anxieties…and how to alleviate them.

MEMORY MAPPING
Florida–based life writing teacher Patricia Charpentier invites you to sketch your childhood street and the layout of your home, labeling everything you can remember. As you create your map, old memories might float to the surface.

Fighting for the future

REQUIRING EXTRAORDINARY EFFORTS
“Whoever controls the archives controls history.” A look at why it is important for Ukraine to work on protecting and preserving archival collections during wartime.

HIGHLIGHTING—AND HONORING—MILITARY STORIES
“It was hearing their life story—it humanizes people. It’s easy to label people and put them in boxes, but we all have a story, we all have lessons, we all have so much value to give.” Retired Air Force vet’s podcast shares hero stories.