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Life Story Links: November 24, 2020
Conversations on memoir, memories of Thanksgiving, new courses of note, plus a diverse array of stories about memory-keeping and life story preservation.
“We all want to get to the masterpieces of our writing lives by the shortest route possible. Trouble is, the shortest route possible is always the road ahead.”
—Bill Roorbach
On this vintage postcard, a parrot says to the turkey: “I would rather spend my life behind the bars than lose my head upon the block.” Courtesy New-York Historical Society, 1907.
Courses of Note
WRITE YOUR LIFE
Last week I began rolling out short memory and writing prompt courses geared at anyone who wants to preserve their family stories, even if they don’t consider themselves a writer.
OBITUARY HELP
In a free lunch-and-learn from Keeper on Tuesday, December 1, grief expert Allison Gilbert interviews professional biographers Kate Buford and Abby Santamaria about “how to expertly craft the kinds of obituaries that truly honor and celebrate your loved ones.”
The Memoir Files
TIM & MARY TALK
In this wide-ranging conversation Tim Ferriss speaks to Mary Karr about why she staged fights in her university memoir classes, how she found poetry in the idioms of her Texas upbringing, and why every writer should keep a commonplace book. Listen in here, or read the full transcript on Tim’s site:
PLAYING WITH FORM
“I think memoir is so much more than a single person’s memories, or the story of one life. That’s a power of the form for me—that it is so poetic, and it is so flexible, you can play with it.” Kao Kalia Yang, a self-described “prose writer with a poet’s sensibility,” on pushing the boundaries of the memoir genre.
IN HIS WORDS, IN HIS VOICE
In these five audio excerpts from Barack Obama’s new memoir, A Promised Land, the former president tells stories about spending time with some of the women in his life as well as his decision to approve the raid that led to the killing of terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden.
DIVERSE, PERSONAL WAR STORIES
“After poring over people's correspondence and journal entries, it can be emotional seeing a young soldier's attitude…change from excited about going abroad to huddling in the trenches fearing for their lives,” historian Jacqueline Larson Carmichael said. Her new book, Heard Amid the Guns: True Stories from the Western Front, 1914-1918, is out this month.
Times, They Are A-Changin’
A VASTLY DIFFERENT FRESHMAN BREAK
Massachusetts–based personal historian Nancy West shares a first person piece about welcoming her daughter home from college for Thanksgiving, a ritual made quite different due to Covid-19.
TURKEY TALES
“These 29 Thanksgiving vignettes…exuberantly celebrate many cultures, stories, and people that loved us through their cooking,” Becky Hadeed writes. She curated a variety of holiday stories—sometimes funny, sometimes poignant, altogether relatable—for this episode of The Storied Recipe, which you can (and should!) listen to in full here:
MORE PANDEMIC JOURNALING
For the first 25 years after the pandemic, materials from University of Connecticut’s Pandemic Journaling Project will be available only to academic researchers; after that, the entire collection will become a publicly accessible archive. Each week a few entries are featured anonymously, with permission.
Potpourri
A “GREAT AND GEEKY” LEGACY
”I know people get upset when celebrities die,” former Jeopardy! contestant Burt Thakur said. “To me, he wasn’t a celebrity. To me, Alex Trebek was just another uncle.” Read tributes from fans of the American icon, as well as obituaries at Legacy.com and USA Today.
BEYOND A FINANCIAL LEGACY
“The question of how to pass personal values to future generations—and to continue to have some influence long after death—is expanding the traditional parameters of estate planning.” A look at family legacy trusts from Barron’s.
PILOT PROGRAM FOR MEMORY-CARE PATIENTS
Telememory, a telehealth startup that uses AI to power its digital technology, is helping families collect, curate, and reminisce together even as it tracks memory-care patients’ emotional responses to help improve their health and happiness.
MUSEUM OF SMELLS
I inhaled the tiny pot of Play-Doh my son got in his Halloween bag this year then stashed it in my room for when I need another sniff of nostalgia—for me, it truly is a singular childhood scent. Which of “your own personal smell memories” have become part of you? The New York Times asked readers, and their answers are unsurprisingly evocative.
NOW CASTING
How I Got Here, a new television series, is looking for second-generation individuals aged 14–30 to be cast on the program; subjects will travel (with their parent or grandparent) to their country of origin. Deadline for applications is December 1, 2020.
Our Stories, Our Selves
REASONS FOR DOCUMENTING PERSONAL HISTORY
“Sharing one’s personal history can benefit the individual recounting it as well as family members. One study found that reminiscing and storytelling reduce older people’s loneliness and increase feelings of social connectedness and overall well-being,” reports the Catholic Sentinel.
PERSONAL HISTORY RESOURCE
StoryCorps has released this seven-minute masterclass with Daniel Horowitz Garcia on how to conduct a great interview:
A GIFT FOR THE FUTURE
Pam Pacelli Cooper of Verissima Productions in Massachusetts coins a new verb, ‘ancestoring,’ and offers a few ideas for how to get good at it.
...and a Few More Links
“Memory Walking” exhibit in Poughkeepsie, NY, celebrates ordinary objects, family history.
Fair use: a statement on best practices for biographers drafted jointly by legal scholars, book publishers, and writers
Hippocampus magazine announces winners of “Remember in November” creative nonfiction writing contest.
Conversation with an ancestor surrounding the verity of Alexander Hamilton as a slave owner
Browse videos (mostly of biographers speaking about their subjects) from the archives of the Leon Levy Center for Biography.
The prospect of a memoir by President Trump is proving divisive in the publishing industry.
Short Takes
Life Story Links: June 2, 2020
Unique memory preservation methods including illustrated maps, birthday tributes & travel scrapbooks; plus memoir writing now, and a vintage Mary Karr interview.
“The people we most love do become a physical part of us, ingrained in our synapses, in the pathways where memories are created.”
—Meghan O’Rourke
Returning to Camp after a day’s fishing, Maine. Photograph courtesy The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs: Photography Collection, The New York Public Library. (1898 - 1931).
All Ways of Remembering
TAKING CARE OF TRAVEL MEMORIES
“There’s no wrong way to scrapbook, and there needn’t be any rhyme or reason, aside from what resonates with you. Whether the order is chronological or geographical, the captions hyper-specific or non-existent, the finished product is unavoidably sentimental, a reflection of the way you lived while walking (or biking, or dog-sledding) out into the world.”
BIRTHDAY LOVE
When you want to cap off a milestone birthday party with a most meaningful gift, consider an heirloom birthday tribute book oozing with love and memories. Why tribute books are so popular right now.
A COLORFUL APPROACH
An illustrated map “can be a beautiful and highly personal reflection of a place you, friends and family know quite well. It can tell a story, a personal history, or be a unique lens through which one can experience a special place.”
DISPATCHES FROM THE BASEMENT
“Dad, I just want to say, thank you for helping get rid of this virus.” In this remote video, a son thanks his father, a doctor who has been isolating from his wife and four children to shield them from exposure to Covid-19:
Write It Out
WRITING YOUR HISTORY IN REAL TIME
“Sure, today’s youth may know that Jackie Robinson was the first African American to play in the MLB. But did they know that their grandfather got a black eye from a schoolyard fight when a classmate argued that ‘[African Americans] shouldn’t play baseball?’ That makes it real.” Virginia–based personal historian Karen Bender makes a case for keeping a Covid diary.
AN OLDIE BUT A GOODIE
“This is a simply stunning interview of Mary Karr from 2009,” Tim Ferriss writes. “I’ve read it multiple times, highlighted nearly every page, and saved my scans to Evernote. That’s how much goodness I think it contains. It’s also laugh-out-loud funny.”
PATCHWORK
“I wrote most of the essays as individual pieces so then it was the work of figuring out how they spoke to one another. I wanted to be aware of overlaps and gaps in the memoir arc, the narrative and consciously choose how I addressed them.” Sejal Shah on giving shape to her essay collection.
...and a Few More Links
How will we remember the pandemic? Museums are already deciding.
Anthony Bailey, memoirist and biographer of artists, died at 87.
Escape to the past with stories of NYC of old—including, perhaps, your own.
Michigan–based video biographers think now, “in the time of coronavirus,” is the perfect time to preserve your stories.
Short Takes