Memories Matter
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Life Story Links: Blog Roundup, March 28, 2018
Writing about decisions that shaped your life, inspiration for personal historians who want to improve their craft, and why World Backup Day matters to you.
“I solemnly swear to back up my important documents and precious memories on March 31st.”
Did you know that March 31st is World Backup Day? That’s the pledge quoted above.
“We all know someone who has lost critical data, whether it was their videos, photos, music, book reports, or personal stuff,” says World Backup Day founder Ismail Jadun. In fact, it is estimated that people now create and generate over 1.8 zettabytes of data per year, with 30 percent of people never having backed it up at all.
For business owners, that means protecting the “data” that is our clients’ stories and our livelihood. And for everyone, that means doing something to ensure precious family photos and other digital family history information is not lost.
Take the pledge, and spread the word: I have no doubt that if you are reading this, then you are invested in saving our digital heritage for future generations, too.
Business Minded
HUNTING FOR BOOKS
Because life story books are intended for a small, private audience, they can be hard to find. But for a new personal historian, they can be a goldmine for learning the craft, writes The Life Story Coach Amy Woods Butler of Kansas City, Missouri.
ORIGIN STORY
Bethesda-based longtime personal historian Pat McNees chronicles the history of the Association of Personal Historians, from 20 years of winding success to its sad demise in 2017.
Memoir, Legacy, Memories
DECISIONS, DECISIONS
A historic tragedy in her hometown inspires Patricia Pihl of Real Life Legacies in Western New York to think about the determining forces which shape our lives—events that happen outside of our control as well as the paths we consciously decide to take.
VINTAGE, UNKOWN
While I love browsing nostalgic #foundphotos on Instagram, my scrolling is always accompanied by a twinge of sadness. It’s the storytellers who renew my hope.
Vintage “found photos” from the Anonymous Project’s Instagram feed.
BEQUEATHING A LEGACY
“In spite of the importance of the family history, when clients are asked if they know their great-grandparents’ stories, the answer is too often silence,” writes Michael A. Cole, president of Ascent Private Capital Management. Yet “they don’t want their story to be lost. They want to leave a legacy that lasts for generations.”
SURVIVAL STORY
One man’s resilience in the wake of devastating fires and floods and mudslides encourages California-based personal historian Lisa O'Reilly to remind us of the value of forging meaning from our stories.
FOR YOUR HEALTH
Ruminations on the power of memoir from an unexpected source, Harvard Medical School: “You have a unique firsthand account of your culture and history that others don’t, and leaving a recorded history of your life can be an important gift to both you and your descendants.” Indeed.
Short Takes
#MemoriesMatter #Legacy #LifeStories #Memoir #OralHistory #FamilyHistory
Life Story Links: Blog Roundup, March 20, 2018
Personal historians weigh in on the urgency to tell your life stories, the intersection of downsizing and memoir writing, and how to write about family secrets.
“The past, like the future, is indefinite and exists only as a spectrum of possibilities.” —Stephen Hawking
Of Interviewers...
LOVE AND LOSS
Personal historian Lisa O'Reilly, of Carpinteria, California, writes “To Mom, With Love,” a most personal and urgent message that calls upon us all to capture our loved ones’ stories...before it is too late.
THE STORIES THAT WE WEAVE
Amanda Lacson of NYC’s Family Archive Business LLC distills some of the lessons she learned at Columbia University’s Oral History MA workshops, and discusses how we, as biographers and personal historians, can earn and tell better stories for our clients.
MEMOIR MOTIVATED
“There’s no quicker way to rip us off the rollercoaster and park us on the granny-bench than to adverb your verbs.” Just one of the colorfully on-point writing tips in Cyndy Etler’s “How to Write Memoir So They Don’t Read It, They Live It.”
SENIORS & THEIR STUFF
Discussions with professional organizers led MA-based Nancy West to discover interesting points of intersection between her work and theirs: How writing your memoir can help you declutter, destress, and maybe even downsize.
...and Interviewees
THE PLACE THEY CALL HOME
Miami’s iconic Little Havana neighborhood is home to an interactive museum exhibit that invites audiences to step into the daily lives of ten local residents whose passion, creativity, and penchant for history is ensuring that future generations will experience the Little Havana they know and love. Get a taste of their stories.
WHAT’S IN A NAME?
“We spend our life identifying ourselves by our name,” writes Karen Bender of Virginia-based Leaves of Your Life. “Your name will go on the cover of your book. Surely, your feelings about that name warrant a paragraph or two within its pages.”
FIRST PERSON
“I ate until I was stuffed full of memories.” Esmé Weijun Wang finds her way back to a beloved childhood dish.
...and a Few More Links!
- Lisa Pontoppidan of Boston-based Personal Story Films shares why she loves capturing stories—and personalities—on film, including “the spirit that shines from their eyes.”
- Freeze Frame: A panicky realization that some of my most cherished photos might be left out of my family archive led me to write this cautionary tale.
- The Audio Transcription Center rounds up seven digital recorders recommended for oral history interviews.
- Amisha Padnani, digital editor on the obituaries desk at the New York Times, has turned an idea for recognizing overlooked women into a movement.
- “My grandmother taught me that stories aren’t important because they’re written, they’re important because they’re living, embodied in the teller and the listener alike,” writes Kristin Chang.
- Digging into your family history you will find all kinds of people. Once a dark secret is uncovered, what should you do?
Short Takes
Life Story Links: Blog Roundup, March 6, 2018
The best of RootsTech 2018, why you don’t have to be old to write your memoir, immigrant experiences, & how animated film Coco encourages family storytelling.
“Facts get recorded. Stories get remembered.”
Roots Tech Highlights
This past weekend saw more than 70,000 family history aficionados pack the Salt Palace Convention Center in Salt Lake City for Roots Tech 2018. I was a #NotAtRootsTech follower, and can attest that the convention has generously given access to a number of strong resources for those of us who weren’t able to be there in person. This year’s theme: “Connect. Belong.” A few highlights:
- Watch the full keynote from Humans of New York’s Brandon Stanton, who talks about the power of listening, authentic storytelling, and his journey (and challenges) in following his dream.
- Laura Hedgecock of Treasure Chest of Memories shared her tips for converting family history research into compelling narratives in her presentation, “Choosing Details: The Secret to Compelling Stories.”
- Former Olympian Scott Hamilton admitted that, like most RootsTech attendees, he came to the conference in search of answers, and as an adoptee with a complicated medical history, “he came to the right place.”
- Genealogist and host of Genealogy Roadshow D. Joshua Taylor spoke about the need for diversity in family history technologies, and has made his slideshow available online.
- Did you watch the Academy Awards Sunday night? The song “Remember Me” from the Disney-Pixar film Coco (about a Mexican boy who travels to the Land of the Dead to discover an ancestor—see more below) took home the Oscar for best song. It was performed theatrically during the awards, but singer Natalie LaFourcade gave an enchanting acoustic performance at Roots Tech first.
History Made Personal
WAR STORIES, BURIED
“I don’t know why my father really never spoke of his exploits during the war—never mentioned that his commanding officer had nominated him for a Legion of Merit award, or that he led a team of men searching for stolen treasure,” writes Susan Fisher Sullam in the Washington Post. “But his files...gave me a glimpse of a father I had never known.”
THE YOUNG & THE WRITERLY
Why do we assume that writing memoirs is a task reserved for our elders? Samantha Shubert of NYC’s Remarkable Life Memoirs offers up a compelling argument for leaving age out of the memoir-writing equation. Oh, and there are a fair number of wonderful reading suggestions in this post, as well!
IMMIGRANT EXPERIENCES
Last week I had the pleasure of visiting the Tenement Museum on Manhattan's Lower East Side, and I wrote about my experience—and some book recommendations—in my latest post. Don’t worry: Even if you’re nowhere near NYC, there are ways to engage with the immigrant families and their stories that are beyond worthwhile.
A scene from Coco: main character Miguel with his oldest living relative, great-grandmother Mamá Coco. Disney-Pixar
“REMEMBER ME,” INDEED
“There is a mythic truth to the central idea” of the animated film Coco, writes Amanda Lacson of NY-based Family Archive Business: “When we remember our ancestors, they do live on.” How amazing that this family film encourages us to remember our family stories!
VALUE PROPOSITION
Nancy West, a Boston–area personal historian, says, “My goal is to facilitate the [memoir-writing] process, whether that means making it easy or just making it less difficult.” What differentiates the easy projects from the more demanding ones?
...and a Few More Links!
- The NYC restaurant where grandmas cook to share their cultures
- New feature film, Nostalgia, explores the sorting that families find themselves facing as relatives age or die
- The work of American photographers who experimented with photography on paper is the subject of a new exhibit at the Getty
- Memoirist Dani Shapiro says goodbye to her blog but finds new ways to explore the creative process with her readers
- Archivist Margot Note provides guidance on how to identify and date historical photographs
- Milwaukee-based personal historian Mary Patricia Voell of Legacies, LLC was featured in the March issue of Reunions magazine (see page 10)!
- And congrats to Carol McLaren for setting up a new website for her Arizona-based personal history business, Unique Life Stories.
Short Takes
Life Story Links: Blog Roundup, Feb. 20, 2018
Multiple personal historians weigh in on telling stories creatively using more than straight narrative, plus writing tips, family archive preservation & more.
“In the particular is contained the universal.”
—James Joyce
What a rich array of resources and articles we’ve got this month! Let’s dive right in, shall we?
Stories Come in Many Forms
FACES, PLACES
In an exhibition at the Art Institute of Chicago, Al Solh’s ongoing series of drawings—or as she prefers to call them, “time documents”—emerged from deeply personal encounters and conversations between the artist and Syrian refugees, as well as other forcibly displaced people. “After five years of continuing this work, I am more aware of how faces tell a story that is as powerful as each person’s story, their ideas about life, aspirations, and how we can go on, wherever we have ended up." I wish I were closer and could see the work in person, but this gallery of images is quite inspiring.
Mounira Al Solh. I strongly believe in our right to be frivolous, 2012–ongoing. Photo: Courtesy of the artist and Sfeir-Semler Gallery; Beirut / Hamburg
BIOGRAPHICAL COMICS
Ellie Kahn of Living Legacies Family Histories in Van Nuys, CA, is working with an illustrator to transform one client’s personal stories into comics! See some sample strips, by cartoonist Ben Evans, here.
A LIST OF LISTS?
Sometimes it’s not a long narrative that most interestingly tells your story, it’s a simple list. I explore how to use lists to add texture to a life story book, including a list of list-writing prompts geared at family historians, plus some sample spreads from my personal library.
MORE THAN WORDS
Memoirs consist primarily of narrative. But they can also serve as a medium for artwork, poems, songs, toasts, and other bits of memorabilia that represent your life. Massachusetts-based Nancy West shares ideas from the pages of books she has produced.
Tips, Tenements & Time Travel
WRITING LIFE STORY
Sarah White of First Person Productions in Madison,WI, shares a powerful writing exercise from the most thumbed-though, sticky-noted book in her memoir writing library, Your Life as Story by Tristine Rainer. Definitely check it out—I can say from experience Rainer’s tips are beyond useful, and often surprising in what they elicit in your writing, and White features a gem here.
TIME TRAVEL
The initial rationale for funding a personal history project may be to share the subject’s life with grandchildren or great-grandchildren—but, writes Jim Michael of the Personal History Center in Lilburn, GA, “We can never predict who may eventually see it and how it may influence those who view or read it.” Send your life story on a time voyage.
TWO-FER TUESDAY
Brianna Audrey Wright, who calls herself a “storyteller of bygone days” and specializes in Nebraska, Iowa & South Dakota family history, offers up two recent blogs of interest: “Names and records are wonderful and necessary, yes, but it’s that dash between birth and death that’s so fascinating,” she writes in “Genealogist or Family Historian?” In another post, she contemplates the question: What is a legacy in the digital age?
NEW YORK NARRATIVES
It took 10 years and hundreds of hours of interviews to create NYC’s Tenement Museum’s latest exhibit, which chronicles the lives of three post-World War II families who once lived in the building at 103 Orchard Street. “Under One Roof” isn’t a straight work of architectural preservation—rather, it is both a reversion and a reinvention, preserving a space in order to preserve the stories of the people who once occupied it, as a way of telling the story of America.
“WHAT CAN I SAY THAT HASN’T BEEN SAID?”
A conversation with her father prompted Olive Lowe to reflect on why we should tell our stories, even when we think they’re simply not original. “It’s true that most of the items we could list on our ‘life resume’ are on someone else’s too,” writes the Mesa, AZ–based personal historian. But it’s not the what that matters as much as everyone’s personal why.
...and a Few More Links!
- The New York Times addresses How to Preserve Your Family Memories, Letters and Trinkets in the Smarter Living Section.
- The obituary that Jean Lahm wrote about her father told his story and made people laugh a little, too—and made strangers miss a man they never knew.
Short Takes
Life Story Links: Blog Roundup, February 5
Click for memoir writing advice, personal history workshops, how you can help make Holocaust victims’ records searchable online, and more life story links.
“We tell ourselves stories in order to live.”
—Joan Didion
Whose story will you tell?
SHOW-DON’T-TELL MOMENTS
We all know the old maxim: “Show, don’t tell.” But sometimes subjects don't believe that it applies to memoir: “Clients want to tell me their feelings,” says Massachusetts–based memoir ghost writer Nancy West. “And yet it's usually easy to find actions that demonstrate those feelings much better than adjectives or adverbs ever can.”
NEW YEAR
“The stories from the past help prepare us for the future. We must be ready to embrace what is coming,” writes Carol McLaren as she embarks on a year filled with changes, including a move from Virginia to Arizona, and a new website for her business, Unique Life Stories, on the horizon. Good luck, Carol!
EVERYONE GETS AN ‘A’
Life story writing workshops are safe places to share one’s story and bond with others as they do the same. Karen Bender of Leaves of Your Life in Herndon, VA, is offering in-person and online workshops for anyone interested in exploring weekly themes.
“IT HAPPENED.”
Millions of documents containing details about victims of the Holocaust and Nazi persecution during WWII still exist today. Through the World Memory Project, you can help make these victims' records searchable online & restore the identities of people the Nazis tried to erase from history, one person at a time.
First-person reads
“DO YOU WANT TO DANCE?”
Sarah White of Madison–based First Person Productions often publishes the writing of others on her blog. Deb Wilbrink answered a New Orleans-themed call for submissions with an engaging coming-of-age story about teenage firsts in the Big Easy.
PHOTOS TELL STORIES, TOO
“The Cubans encouraged exchange of words and hospitality, not discouraged by my minimal Spanish language skills,” says MA–based personal historian Leah Abrahams in her introduction to her photo essay, “Cuba on the Cusp,” on the Social Documentary Network website (“visual stories exploring global themes”).
Bonus links
- This Beginner’s Guide to Backing Up Photos is a must-read for every camera-toting memory keeper.
- Forty first-person essays that talk candidly about love and loss: “Brutally honest and inspiring, Modern Loss invites us to talk intimately and humorously about grief, helping us confront the humanity (and mortality) we all share.” I highly recommend this new book.
- My own blog contribution this week would likely fall on the “low-brow” quadrant of New York mag’s Approval Matrix, but I still submit it’s worth a read: Recapture the spirit of childhood Valentine’s Days with three unique ideas for marking the holiday with meaning—and heart.
Short Takes
#MemoriesMatter #Legacy #LifeStories #Memoir #OralHistory #FamilyHistory
Life Story Links: Blog Roundup, January 23
Our roundup explores the path to legacy, including (mis)adventures with DNA, community memoirs, family history through storytelling & a new Ann Curry TV series.
“Is that the secret meaning of the word ‘story,’ do you think: a storing place of memories?”
—J.M. Coetzee, Foe
Stories are at the heart of what we do. As personal historians, we work across an array of media, from coffee table books and audio recordings to full-fledged video biographies and printed memoirs. No matter the medium, though (and no matter what we call our work), the preservation of stories is key. Oh yes, and story sharing—did I mention the sharing...?!
The Path to Legacy
SENIOR CENTER STORIES
“In 2012, I completed my first community memoir, a compilation with 47 senior citizens from Carleton-Willard Village in Bedford, MA,” says Nancy West of Nancy Shohet West Editorial & Memoir Services. Five years later she was invited back to do a second volume, which launched this week.
200 YEARS OF MEMORIES
How deep is your memory bank? “We often despair when an elderly person passes away, their memories unrecorded,” writes Pam Pacelli Cooper of Massachusetts–based Verissima Productions. “What we often forget to do is seek out the younger person who listened to the stories of their elders. We can record them.”
A TENDENCY TOWARD NOSTALGIA
Rediscovering an old family photo album in my closet prompted me to reflect on the lasting appeal and transformative power of nostalgia.
(MIS)ADVENTURES WITH DNA
“Sometimes your heritage doesn’t have anything at all to do with your genetics—and I didn’t even have to spit in a test tube to figure it out,” writes Kristen V. Brown is this compelling piece that unravels the science behind ancestry DNA tests—and that, certainly, makes us wonder if those colorful pie-chart genetic results reveal something profound about what makes you, you...or if they are simply a fun conversation starter.
Must-See TV
“THROUGH THE EYES OF ORDINARY PEOPLE”
In her new PBS series We’ll Meet Again, veteran journalist Ann Curry focuses on reunions between people whose lives intersected and were torn apart at pivotal moments. The seasoned interviewer honors the power of connection, and the stories she draws forth from her subjects are emotional and, perhaps more important, seem to inspire viewers to reflect on their own lives and moments of connection. View the official trailer and get a peek at upcoming episodes here. The first episode airs tonight.
Short Takes
#MemoriesMatter #Legacy #LifeStories #Memoir #OralHistory #FamilyHistory
Life Story Links: Blog Roundup, January 9
The (unexpected?) audience for your memoir, the wisdom of old people & remembrance of those lost in 2017 round out this week’s life story links blog roundup.
“What I know for sure is that speaking your truth is the most powerful tool we all have.”
—Oprah Winfrey, Golden Globes, 2018
It has been a slow start to the new year for me, hit with a flu that has left me grumpy and tired and well, not at all productive. I’ve had plenty of time to read, though, and since my guilty-pleasure Christmas gift, Tina Brown’s Vanity Fair Diaries (so much dish I recognize from my years in the same mag world!) is too heavy to hold up in my weakened state, I’ve been indulging in memoirs on the Kindle and plenty of link diving on my phone.
I’m almost done with Alan Cumming’s 2014 memoir Not My Father’s Son (well worth the read). I’ve got the current issue of Brevity open on my phone, for creative nonfiction pieces that fulfill and enlighten in short periods of time. And I’ve been perusing Cathi Nelson’s new book, Photo Organizing Made Easy: Going from Overwhelmed to Overjoyed, gleaning tips to share in a future blog post (as I’ve written about before, photographs can make for incredible memory prompts, and being able to find the photos in our overflowing photo libraries is often no easy task).
Here are a few posts and articles that have been on my sick-bed reading list, as well. Happy (and healthy!) New Year to you all, fellow storytellers.
Living, Writing, Remembering
WHY WE READ ABOUT ONE ANOTHER
“My memoir clients assume their readership will be limited to their children and grandchildren,” says Massachusetts-based personal historian Nancy Shohet West. “They are consistently surprised when their nieces, nephews, friends, neighbors, former colleagues, and long-time acquaintances all start clamoring for copies of their own.” If you can picture just one reader, it might be time to start writing.
CLASS NOTES
Craig Siulinski of Sharing Legacies in San Carlos, CA, recently completed leading his first Life Story Writing class based on the principles of guided autobiography. Read about his joyful experience, learn more about guided autobiography, or pick up a book to help you on your path to crafting your own life story. And if you’re in the market for a flash nonfiction writing class, check out Sarah White’s recent post.
REMEMBERING THOSE LOST IN 2017
As part of the New York Times Magazine’s annual The Lives They Lived issue, editors invited readers to contribute a photograph and a story of someone close to them who died this year: The Lives They Loved.
“TALKING TO ALL THOSE OLD PEOPLE”
“No work I have ever done has brought me as much joy and hope, or changed my outlook on life as profoundly,” writes John Leland of his year interviewing elderly New Yorkers. His book Happiness Is a Choice You Make: Lessons From a Year Among the Oldest Old will be published on Jan. 23. A. E. Hotchner reviewed: “Remarkable revelations gleaned from those who, in their superannuated years, have discovered rewarding benefits from the life that actually surrounds them.”
CELEBRATING LIFE, AND ART
A film called “funny and life-affirming,” Faces Places explores themes of art, vision, regular people, and aging, all with tenderness and wit, energy and delight. Find showtimes in select cities.
Short Takes
#MemoriesMatter #Legacy #LifeStories #Memoir #OralHistory #FamilyHistory
Life Story Links: Blog Roundup, December 11
Oral history during the holidays, how not to conduct an interview, power of voice to evoke memories & a few first person accounts to whet your life story whistle.
“We tell ourselves stories in order to live.”
—Joan Didion
With so many diverse links of interest to storytellers and family historians this week, why don’t we skip introductions and dive right in—shall we?
Listen Up
(JUST) AUDIO?
Meghan Vigeant of Stories To Tell in Maine is making a change to her personal history business: She’s paring away the multitude of offerings she once listed, including book production and memoir coaching, and is now focusing on her audio services: audio memoirs & oral histories. Read why this time, it’s all about the audio.
FROM PHONE MESSAGES TO FAMILY STORIES
“When I was a kid spending the night at my grandmother’s house in Harrisville, Michigan, I’d stay up past my bedtime and lay on the bedroom floor with an ear pressed against the heat grate, straining to hear the conversations of the adults in the parlor below,” says Rebekah Smith. She was “seeking out good company and soaking up their stories” then, something she continues to do now in her QuOTed podcast. Check out the 30 mini episodes the Minneapolis-based Smith posted as part of National Podcast Post Month in November 2017.
Signs of the Times
THE FAMILY TABLE
“Occasionally, I would come home from work and find a strange, unshaven man dressed in rags, sitting at our kitchen table,” Ellie Kahn's grandmother told her. Ellie learned of her great-grandmother’s Depression-era generosity (serving strangers entire meals in her home, “from soup to dessert”) while the family shared stories around the Chanukah table. There is no better time to tell such precious stories than during the holidays, and Ellie Kahn, a Los Angeles-based oral historian and owner of Living Legacies Family Histories, offers up myriad suggestions for starting new storytelling traditions this year.
HOW NOT TO CONDUCT AN INTERVIEW
“Those of us who interview others for a living can learn a lot from [Matt] Lauer’s disastrous outing,” writes NYC personal historian Samantha Shubert, who goes on to detail four strategic & substantive ways to get the most out of any conversational interview—not à la the former Today Show host’s example.
Visual Storytelling
When a photographer sets out to live with and document the everyday lives of an order of contemplative nuns in New Zealand, the silent observance reveals a rich narrative.
A photograph by Cam McLaren on display at the New Zealand Geographic Photographer of the Year exhibition
First Person Reflections
ON CARS...
After reading Sarah White’s recent post about her first car (“The Pinto”), guest writer Dorothy Ross submitted a tale of her own youthful automotive daring to True Stories Well Told. (“I named my sweet car Daisy, after the girl in The Great Gatsby,” reflects Ross.) Consider adding your voice to the reminiscences about first cars on Madison, WI-based Sarah White’s blog.
...AND MORE...
- Carol McLaren of Unique Life Stories in Pinon, Arizona writes about her father on the occasion of his 91st birthday.
- Hear, Here is an oral history project in LaCrosse, Wisconsin, that focuses on place-based stories that bring the experiences of the everyday person to light.