Memories Matter
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Life Story Links: April 13, 2021
A curated reading list for memory keepers with recent pieces about the stories of heirlooms and family photos, preserving food memories & connecting generations.
“Don’t be afraid of writing into the heart of what you’re most afraid of. The story of a life lives in what you would rather not admit or say.”
—Kate Christensen
Vintage postcard. Happy spring!
Memory Palace
THE ART OF FORGETTING
“The fragments of experience that do get encoded into long-term memory are then subject to ‘creative editing.’ To remember an event is to reimagine it.” A look at Lisa Genova’s new book, Remember.
LOOKING BACK…
“As we look back on ‘the good old days,’ we need to ask ourselves: Was the past actually as great as we remember it? And what can we learn from all these walks down memory lane?” Is romanticizing the past okay?
STORY TIME
“Grandchildren who come to their grandparents with genuine curiosity will inevitably tap a rich well of stories from their elders.” Last week I wrote about why grandparents are excited to share stories with their grandkids (and how to go about getting them).
Food Memories, Preserved
AN OMNIVOROUS WRITER
In her hybrid memoir-cookbook, The Book of Difficult Fruit: Arguments for the Tart, Tender, and Unruly (with recipes), Kate Lebo explores fruit “as a way to understand her memories of broken hearts and health issues, by giving attention to its messier bits—all with accompanying ways to make jams, smoothies, shrubs, and more.”
SCHMALTZY SALON
Limited spots are available for a short live event on April 20th in which Israeli author Shifra Cornfeld tells a story about her complicated relationship with her father and a quest to discover his past through his love of pecan pie.
The Stories Behind Our Stuff
“WHAT LOSS LOOKS LIKE”
“We couldn’t hold her hand as she left us. But now we had something that represented her at the very end,” Elinor Halligan says of her mother's pendants. Browsing this collection of artifacts—remnants from loved one’s lives, stories collected in the fabric, wood, and stone of things—is an emotional endeavor.
LIFELONG POSSESSIONS NO MORE?
“Isn’t that how this is supposed to work? We pass on possessions that tie the generations together as they move through the family.” Every year or so a major publication tackles the idea that family heirlooms are frequently getting thrown out instead of passed on. This month a Wall Street Journal writers tackles the notion that our kids don’t want our stuff.
The Big Picture
REDISCOVERED CHILDHOOD PORTRAIT
Alice Neel painted two neighborhood boys in her studio in the 1960s, but the finished painting was never seen by them. Decades later, the sole surviving brother saw his likeness hanging in the Met.
PHOTO INHERITANCE
Feeling burdened by all your old family photos? Many people think giving them to the kids now is a great idea—but then stress about how to split them up. Mollie Bartelt, a photo estate planner, has some tips in the video below.
And for families where the parents didn’t divvy up those photos among the kids already, going through boxes and meaningful mementos after the death of a parent can be challenging. Download this free guide for expert—and compassionate—guidance.
The Business of Personal History
MONEY MATTERS
Rhonda Lauritzen of Evalogue Life gets real with an in-depth conversation about what life story professionals do (and should) charge for their services, and why sometimes we do a project “just for love”:
...and a Few More Links
“Everybody's stories matter”: New Haven Museum collects accounts of pandemic life
Filmmaker weaves decades’ worth of home movie footage into film to create “an indelible portrait of a family separated by incarceration.”
Tips for keeping a memorable travel journal
In the Oscar-nominated documentary short A Concerto Is a Conversation, composer Kris Bowers' family lineage is traced through discussions with his 91-year-old grandfather, Horace.
Inspired by a similar project at Columbia University, Bowdoin Moments seeks to create “a living autobiography.”
A review of Wife|Daughter|Self: A Memoir in Essays by Beth Kephart
Short Takes
Life Story Links: March 30, 2021
A curated reading list for memory keepers including recent pieces about the craft of memoir, connecting generations through story, and history held in letters.
“You don’t need anyone’s permission to be the author of your life. It’s yours. Write it.”
—Cheryl Strayed
On this day in 2003, a law banning smoking in NYC restaurants and bars went into effect (and as a then–New Yorker, I was one of the seemingly few who were happy about it at the time!). Vintage photo of woman smoking in front of the Fifth Avenue entrance to the New York Public Library, 1954, by Angela Rizzuto, courtesy of the Anthony Angel Collection, Library of Congress Digital Collection.
Connecting the Generations
A TEEN AND HIS GRANDFATHER
A teenager reflects on the last couple of years of his PawPaw’s life, during late-stage dementia, and finds five lessons learned from the experience.
IT STARTED WITH A LETTER
Jacob Cramer founded Love for Our Elders when he was in his third year at Yale: The nonprofit collects handwritten and video letters for isolated elders (hundreds of thousands of them to date!). The group has also compiled a “Senior Storybook,” to which you can contribute.
LEGACY LOOMED LARGE
“I wish now that I had asked my father more about his one-and-only game against [Elgin] Baylor, more about that league and those times. But dad died 15 years ago. As close as we were, some of his history will always be cut off from me.”
PROMPTS IN A JAR
Elizabeth Thomas, a personal historian based in Salt Lake City, Utah, shares rules for a simple family history game that makes capturing stories from your family elders fun and engaging.
A GIFT FOR GENERATIONS TO COME
“And remember, you don’t have to call yourself a ‘writer’ or know much about creative writing techniques to write a personal history…. Your children and grandchildren or other members of your family will love anything that gives them a better picture of your life.”
“BRIDGED”
“Maybe, I thought, writing is about so much more than what can be contained within the margins of a page. Maybe it’s about what can be bridged. Or shoved together. At least for a moment.” Jennifer De Leon on mother-daughter relationships and the power of memory.
The Why Behind Story Preservation
CONVEYING THE URGENCY
Like many personal historians, I struggle with finding a way to adequately convey to everyone just how important it is to both ask our parents about their lives and tell them how we feel—and to do so now.
WAR STORIES
"My dad told me a lot of stories about being a poor kid in Kentucky...and I didn't write them down. And so I forgot,” said Tom Everman. So, the air force veteran recently wrote his own memories of the Vietnam War—for his children.
Epistolary Exchanges
“DEAR G.I.”
In 1966, a Massachusetts mother of three began writing to young men serving in Vietnam. One became her most steadfast pen pal, writing her 77 letters over seven years, and now that correspondence is gathered in a book.
1950S DRAG ARTISTS TELL THEIR STORIES
“I don't know why you guys want to tell this story,” various subjects told a co-director of the new documentary P.S. Burn This Letter Please. The film—like the letters it is based upon—opens a window into a forgotten world where being yourself meant breaking the law and where the penalties for “masquerading” as a woman were swift and severe.
The Stuff of History
WHIRLWIND TRIP DOWN MEMORY LANE
“Two men. Two lives,” Dan McCullough writes. “One album of memories shared only by these two men, precipitated by one of them standing in a doorway a week ago today.”
A ‘VISUAL MEMORY‘ OF WAR IN SYRIA
“There is growing concern that digital evidence of history’s most documented conflict is being syphoned away by the Internet’s indiscriminate trash can.” As one Syrian activist put it, “It’s not just videos that have been deleted, it’s an entire archive of our life.”
THE OLDER, THE BETTER?
“It’s the photo albums, the well-loved baby blankets, and the shoe boxes full of letters that have left me paralyzed.” A thoughtful look at why decluttering can be so emotionally fraught.
“RIGHTSIZING”
Jeannine Bryant, author of Keep the Memories, Not the Stuff, “recommends attaching a story or experience to prized possessions, such as pointing out the single item that came from the ‘old country’ with an ancestor, to explain why it's important to you—and why it might become a cherished item for them someday.”
FROM TRASH TO TREASURE
“Why are you spending so much time on just one person—and just one person’s garbage? Because it’s such a robust story,” archaeologist Seth Mallios says in this piece exploring how he and his students are revealing the story of Nathan Harrison, one artifact at a time:
On the Craft of Memoir
OUT OF THE SHADOWS
Anna Brady Marcus writes about why you must include not just the light experiences (the ups, the joy) but the darker ones (the downs, the struggles) in your autobiography, too.
TIME STAMPS
Beth Kephart has “taken an idiosyncratic tour of time in memoir” and here shares some of her observations on how a writer might approach time on the page.
...and a Few More Links
This year’s college admissions essays became a platform for high school seniors to reflect on the pandemic, race, and loss.
New book features young authors from across the country, ages 7 to 13, sharing their personal stories and experiences about life during the pandemic.
Why do so may people think novels reflect the author’s personal history?
Clothes are a gateway to personal stories in Chinatown Pretty: Fashion and Wisdom from Chinatown’s Most Stylish Seniors.
Halted by pandemic, heritage travelers turn to great reads that delve into ancestors’ often surprising histories.
A rather negative take from a Wall Street Journal Opinion writer on an epidemic “of non-memorable life stories”
Actress Sharon Stone tells her story in new memoir.
Short Takes
Life Story Links: March 16, 2021
Helpful reads for those who value memory-keeping, including conversations about legacy videos, memoir writing, and interviewing loved ones, plus life story ideas.
“Memoir begins not with event but with the intuition of meaning—with the mysterious fact that life can sometimes step free from the chaos and become story.”
—Sven Birkerts
Today would have been my mom’s 74th birthday, so in her honor I am sharing a vintage photo from her teen years—in curlers, on hammock, jokingly giving a drag of her ever-present cigarette to…a youngster. (Yup, I wish I could ask her who all the players in this picture are.)
Helpful Tips for Anyone Who Values Memory-Keeping
HOW TO INTERVIEW SOMEONE IN HOSPICE CARE
When someone I never met wrote to me asking for advice on interviewing their dying mother, I spent some time researching before I answered her. Then I realized that other people might be looking for similar help.
“WHEN DISASTER STRIKES”
“The more we can do now to prepare for an eventual disaster the better off we’ll be—both in terms of safety as well as in protecting our irreplaceable family treasures,” archivist Rachael Cristine Woody writes. This helpful post includes handy checklists for preparing your family treasures for the worst.
CAPTURING FAMILY LEGACY IN VIDEO
In this engaging conversation with video biographer Steve Pender of Family Legacy Video in Tucson, Arizona, he explores topics including putting your family’s story in context of broader world history, and what to do it you think your own stories aren’t interesting enough to save. Listen in below, and click through to discover past episodes.
Our Stories, Our Selves
“A MEMORY PLAY”
“It’s through the film’s specificities that Minari depicts a family like any and no other. And it’s through preserving memories of love, heartbreak and sacrifice…that Chung’s excavation of his own childhood hits on achingly resonant truths about the fluid, formative essence of family.”
ON MEMOIR & FLUID STORYTELLING
“We’re all yearning, thwarted, loving, losing, grieving, laughing, crying, hoping. Our selves matter when we write stories that illuminate the human condition.” Beth Kephart in conversation about her new book, Wife | Daughter | Self: A Memoir in Essays, and on the process and value of memoir.
AN OPPORTUNITY TO SHARE
When Mira Rosenblatt, 97, went for her second shot of the Covid-19 vaccine, a nurse asked her if she was nervous. “I’ve been through way worse,” she said, proceeding to share her life story—including surviving the Holocaust and going on to have eight grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.
“A YEAR LIKE A LIFETIME”
Whitney Myers, an Austin–based video historian, reflects on some of the universal themes she sees “over and over in the interviews I’ve done and year after year throughout the stories of our lives.”
LETTERS FROM—AND TO—THE TROOPS
Legendary comedian Bob Hope, who Congress officially named an “honorary veteran,” uplifted thousands of GIs—not only through his USO tours, but through letters he answered over the years. That correspondence is now collected in a book, Dear Bob: Bob Hope's Wartime Correspondence with the G.I.s of World War II.
...and a Few More Links
Toronto–based historian Dustin Galer, founder of MyHistorian, is featured on CBC.
Archivist hopes to reunite personal photos with tornado victims a year after storms.
How people are writing the history of the pandemic through everyday journals
A writer on her love affair with libraries (including the joy of discovery)
Teaching resources from Facing History and Ourselves for helping students reflect on the past year
Fun read: The untold history of the Barbizon Hotel for Women
Digital archivist Zoe Morrison, based in Florida, shares a friend’s old photo collection—and how clues to stories emerge from the pictures themselves.
The Home Edit and Ancestry share tips for storing your sacred keepsakes.
Short Takes
Life Story Links: March 2, 2021
From notable memoir excerpts to thoughtful pieces on language, family history, and self-identity, this curated list is full of great new reads for memory-keepers.
“In the silence of listening, you can know yourself in everyone, the unseen singing softly to itself and to you.”
—Rachel Naomi Remen
Vintage photograph of nurse feeding a baby, taken between 1935-1945, courtesy of the Manuscripts and Archives Division, The New York Public Library Digital Collections.
Family Stories Matter—a Lot
FAMILY, HERITAGE, KNOWLEDGE
The Deseret News recently spoke with three of the keynote speakers at this year’s RootsTech Connect about their respective family histories and why knowing about one’s heritage matters.
STRESS-FREE WRITING
“I didn’t once notice an ungrammatical sentence or a misplaced comma in that collection of memories. That’s not what matters. What matters is authenticity, voice, and perspective. What matters is that our stories get told, in all of their imperfect glory.” Some really great tips from author Angie Lucas about preserving your stories.
Engaging History
HISTORY AS WE LIVE IT
The Pandemic Journaling Project now has more than 6,500 entries from more than 750 people, containing “perhaps one of the most complete records of North Americans’ internal adjustments over months of pandemic, protest, and political division.”
OUT OF THE BOXES…
Robert Blomfield was a medical student in the sixties when his passion for photography led him to document—in evocative pictures—post-war Edinburgh. Recently his family began to catalogue and digitize thousands of images in the archive and is sharing the legacy with a wider audience.
First Person Reads
WHAT IT MEANS TO BE A BLACK MOTHER IN WHITE AMERICA
“It has been critically important to me that Chris, as a white man, understands how dearly I hold onto my own Blackness, but equally important that he understand how necessary it is that our son be encouraged to hold onto his Blackness, too.” Rebecca Carroll’s memoir powerfully weaves the writer’s commentary with her life experience.
HER WRITING, THEN
“Technically, I’d written a memoir, but what kind of memoir was it? I wrote a book about disability in which the word ‘disability’ appears only once. And that, I’ve since realized, was a mistake.” Sandra Beasley on claiming her identity as a disabled writer.
INHERITED LANGUAGE & FAMILY HISTORIES
“My mother tongue is a linguistic shipwreck; and it is from there that I write the story of my grandparents,” Claudio Lomnitz writes in this excerpt from his memoir, Nuestra América: My Family in the Vertigo of Translation.
Food for Thought
“THE AUTHOR OF NOW”
Are memoirs “a choir made up of soloists only, voices competing for attention, all traveling similar routes, drowning one another out,” as Olga Tokarczuk has put forth? An exploration of the writer’s views on interconnectedness and fiction as a kind of truth.
IN OUR GENES
Using excerpts from the recent documentary The Gene: An Intimate History and season 7 of the series Finding Your Roots, two virtual discussions in March will seek to demystify the science behind genetics and ancestry.
To Health!
THE MEDICINAL POWER OF STORIES
Last week I wrote about how and why storytelling is good not only for the soul, but for our health, too—along with three ways to reap the health benefits of stories in our own lives.
THERAPEUTIC BENEFITS OF LIFE WRITING
And Michael Befus aggregated a LOT of research into one commanding post demonstrating how writing your life story can improve mental health in old age, including lessening symptoms of depression and improving cognitive function.
BEYOND THANK YOU
“It takes a little bravery, but writing sincerely and from the heart turns a polite note into a meaningful memento.” Writing a gratitude letter has proven mental health benefits—not to mention, it simply makes you feel darn good.
...and a Few More Links
a compendium of the most helpful and comprehensive memory-keeping posts on the site
four tips for capturing the spirit of those who have passed in a book
Canon’s new photo culling app
Spring course from Elon University: “Family Storytelling as a Superpower: Helping You Leave a Meaningful Legacy”
Short Takes
Life Story Links: February 16, 2021
When memories are left unrecorded, legacies fade; but when stories are preserved, the rewards are myriad. The value of personal history, memoir, and more.
“Memory nourishes the heart, and grief abates.”
—Marcel Proust
Vintage Valentine’s Day postcard with early 20th-century illustration
In Pictures
SCENES FROM A MARRIAGE
The experience of abundant togetherness during this pandemic for Mandy Patinkin and his wife, Kathryn Grody, “is a matter of public record, because scenes from their marriage—in all its talky, squabbly, emotional, affectionate glory—are all over social media, courtesy of their son Gideon, 34, who started recording them for fun.” What a delight!
SCENES FROM A BYGONE ERA
When boxes of photos of everyday life in the Shetland Islands were salvaged from the recycling heap and shared online, residents’ memories went into high gear. “Overnight, dozens of people were leaving messages and helping to identify the people featured, chiming in with notes on family homes and sharing memories of places they spent time as children.”
Lives Recorded, Lives Unrecorded
AND NOW, BLANK PAGES
“I often wish I could ask my father who he was at 23. I wish I could ask what his bad habits were, or how he treated his mother, or what he did on Saturdays. But his ability to recall his past has disappeared…” A daughter unearths her father’s journals from a time before Alzheimer’s stole his memories.
A GIFT FOR ALL
“At the time I thought I was doing this for my kids, and my grandkids… It would be ancient history on a personal, family level,” Randy McDaniel says of recording his father’s stories while he was in a nursing home. When his dad died years later, Randy realized, “Nope. I recorded it for myself.”
BROOKLYN SERVICEPEOPLE
World War II veterans buried at Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn, NY, will soon be honored by a team of dedicated archivists to offer “a better story than what’s on the gravestone about who these people were and what they did.”
“MY FAMILY AND THE MOB”
“As the hurts are revealed, they offer unexpected insights that traverse generations. The life of the grandfather explains the life of the father, which explains the life of the son.” He knew his grandfather was a mob boss., but was that the whole story? A review of Russell Shorto’s Smalltime.
Pen to Paper
A CONUNDRUM, INDEED
“Not the first modern trans memoir, but perhaps the first with literary ambitions, Conundrum helped establish one way of thinking about what it means to be trans.” A thought-provoking piece about how one person’s story can become less relatable, even “obsolescent,” over time.
A FOOLPROOF WRITING PROMPT
Last week I wrote about the two-word writing prompt guaranteed to keep even the most blocked writer’s memories—and pen—flowing, which was introduced to me by one of my favorite memoirists.
Kinship and Connection
FIRESIDE CHAT
This conversation between Dave Isay, founder and president of StoryCorps, and Dr. Ira Byock, founder of Providence’s Institute for Human Caring, is now seven months old, but its message—how stories build human connections—is as relevant as ever.
UNLOCKING MEMORIES & EMOTIONS
“While we could have looked at photos together before the pandemic, we rarely did. Now, using ‘share screen,’ we gaze at the snapshots Dad took while he was working as a fishing guide on Yellowstone Lake, and as a relief doctor for the Havasupai people who live near the Grand Canyon. The photos release memories.” How Zoom has enabled one family to become closer during the pandemic.
LONG-DISTANCE EXCHANGE
“I get to have a 45-minute to an hour conversation with one of my oldest, closest friends every single week. Not just, ‘How’s life?’ or, ‘How’s your job?’ but real, actual subjects that mean something. Not many people can say that.” Behind the scenes at “The Bittersweet Life” podcast.
AN ARTFUL MEMORIAL
A quilt stands as a monument to a mother who looms large in the memory of her family: “It’s a way to preserve history and...to keep our mom’s memory alive and remember her after all these years.”
...and a Few More Links
“Secrets & Memory: A Workshop for Writers with Dani Shapiro & Albert Flynn DeSilver” on March 6
Smithsonian presents the Mother Tongue Film Festival, “The Healing Power of Storytelling”
Mike Nichols, intuitive storyteller
Read an excerpt from Gabriel Byrne’s new memoir, Walking with Ghosts.
Considering creating a commonplace book?
For one woman, prayer cards provide treasured connections.
Memory and technology: on how we retrieve images from the past
Short Takes
Life Story Links: February 2, 2021
Lots of memoir excerpts to inspire your own life story writing, plus more recent articles with tips and ideas for memory-keeping of all kinds.
“Life has been your art. You have set yourself to music. Your days are your sonnets.”
—Oscar Wilde
Children on sleds in Central Park in New York City, circa 1915, photograph by Bain News Service, courtesy Library of Congress Digital Collection.
The Craft of Ghostwriting (or Whatever You’d Like to Call It)
CHANNELING THEIR VOICES
“Readers just want the truth, particularly in a memoir. And they can really sense when they’re getting it. So I’m mostly hanging out, waiting for the truth to come out and reveal itself.” Michelle Burford on why she prefers to be called a “story architect” rather than a ghostwriter.
THEN AND NOW
Even before co-founding NYC–based Remarkable Life Memoirs, Samantha Shubert was in the business of helping tell empowering life stories. Here she shares a story about how a plum copyediting job inspired her, plus details on her company’s new hybrid memoir/cookbook offering.
Family History, Personal History
FINDING THE JOY
There are plenty of lists of generic family history interview questions around, but this one offers up an array of topics both silly and fun to add some levity to any probing personal history conversation.
STORIES OF BLACK EXPERIENCE
A Connecticut author describes her profound feelings upon reading an ancestor’s obituary—“I cried when I found out what his life was like, being enslaved, wanting to escape, wondering who he left behind”—and encourages Black families to study their genealogy to find personal stories of tragedy and triumph.
THE SHAPE OF US
“What is it that makes us, us?” Kat Nicholls asks in this piece that explores the role our memories play on our identity, and what happens when they’re taken from us.
END-OF-LIFE THOUGHTS
Most of the academic studies social psychologist Michael Ent was able to find were focused on practical aspects of support for the dying rather than on trying to harvest their wisdom—so he undertook a study to see what was on their minds.
PANDEMIC PIX
In an effort to preserve imagery from the Covid-19 pandemic, the Library of Congress’s ‘rapid response’ collecting has already secured special projects from nationally recognized artists and photographers. Now they have extended an offer to citizens across the country to submit their own pictures of pandemic experiences.
Lots of Great Memoir Reads
THE PRICE OF INNOCENCE
“I am a first-generation immigrant…but my real identity, the one that follows me around like a migraine, is that I am the daughter of immigrants,” Karla Cornejo Villavicencio writes in this evocative piece about waking up from the American dream.
A FITTING LEGACY
Deborah Orr never got to see her memoir, Motherwell, become a bestseller, as she died before its publication. In a recent podcast Damian Barr reads an excerpt from this “book about how a deeper understanding of the place and people you have come from can bring you toward redemption.”
IN THE WAKE OF DEVASTATING LOSS
“I feel it in me, that uncomplicated, devastating happiness; it is as true and tactile as anything I’ve ever felt. But behind that feeling lurks the panic that the world can drop out from beneath your feet at any time, because that’s true, too.” Read an excerpt from Emily Rapp Black’s memoir Sanctuary.
LEAVING HOME
“The way my father tells it, my mother was wrong and the police were wrong and my memories were wrong.” Memoirist Danielle Geller tells the story of a life by what was left behind in this excerpt from her new book, Dog Flowers.
BEYOND THE GREAT SILENCE
“Over many years I came to understand that I had been infused part of my father’s traumatic history. Why this happened I do not know. All I do know is that it became the dark ghost inside me, the lining of my heart, the stones of my kidneys.” Jonathan Lichtenstein on writing through the silences of a lost family history.
IMPORTED FROM DENMARK
“I bring news of Tove Ditlevsen’s suite of memoirs with the kind of thrill and reluctance that tells me this must be a masterpiece,” Parul Sehgal writes of The Copenhagen Trilogy: Childhood; Youth; Dependency, translated from the Danish.
Personal History Through Obits
AN ALL-STAR HUMAN
"It was supposed to be the greatest triumph of my life, but I was never allowed to enjoy it,” Hank Aaron said of his storied baseball career. "The only reason that some people didn't want me to succeed was because I was a Black man." Sports Illustrated and The New York Times laud a legend and a gentleman.
AKA LAWRENCE ZEIGER
An intent listener during his CNN interviews, Larry King was fond of saying, "I've never learned anything while I was talking." King, who conducted 50,000 interviews according to the BBC, is quoted by the LA Times as saying, “For this to all happen to a Jewish kid from Brooklyn is a damn impressive thing.”
...and a Few More Links
New “memory safe” product safeguards your digital and physical memories.
John Waters learns that his ancestor owned slaves.
A counselor speaks to the importance of memories and offers tips on how to preserve them.
Presidential biographies, and presidential mythologies
Preserving memories one flower at a time
Early Snapchat employee debuts Yoni Circle, a social storytelling app for womxn.
Project Memory Co. creates photo books with journaling elements.
Short Takes
Life Story Links: January 19, 2021
Timely reads on new memoirs and biographies, tips for fine-tuning your life story writing & curating your family photo archive, plus more links to bookmark now.
“I could tell this story with myself as the villain or the hero, innocent bystander or agent provocateur, and each time I’d be telling a form of the ‘truth.’ What is the value of a truth that has an infinite number of forms?”
—Marc Hammer
On this day in history: Snow fell for the first time in Miami on January 19, 1977 (though for the most part the flakes melted when they hit the ground).
Recent Memoir & Biography
“SUFFERING WITHOUT SENTIMENTALITY”
“I wanted to abandon all this personal history, its darkness and secrecy, its private grievances, its well-licked sorrows and prides—to thrust it from me like a manhole cover,” Bette Howland wrote in her 1974 memoir W-3, which has been recently reissued.
ON WRITING AND LIFE
Gabriel Byrne’s new memoir, Walking with Ghosts, has been hailed as a “masterpiece” by Colum McCann and as “dreamy, lyrical, and utterly unvarnished” by Colm Toibin. Listen in as Byrne talks about memory, loneliness, and more.
ANOTHER SIDE OF SYLVIA
“There’s this sense in other biographies that she was only writing to please other people—to get love from her mother, her professors, her teachers—and I thought that short-changed her own sense of ambition and determination and the pleasure that she got out of writing.” Heather Clark on not falling into the Sylvia Plath trap.
Timely Tips
TREASURE, NOT TRASH
Last week I wrote about what everyone can do to ensure their own family photo collections are inviting to the next generation—for, whether we want to believe it or not, many kids simply throw away those once cherished pictures.
LISTEN UP
“What might happen if you read your memoir aloud as if talking to a therapist…?” David Perez ponders in this piece on the power of speaking your writing to life (spoiler alert: there is substantial power in the exercise).
FREE SELF-PUBLISHING WEBINAR JAN. 25
During “Everything You Want to Know About Self-Publishing but Are Afraid to Ask” you’ll “leave with a roadmap to the self-publishing journey so you can start taking action now.” Register for the free January 25 Zoom class here.
...and a Few More Links
The Statue of Liberty—Ellis Island Foundation has opened a new online shop.
“You can’t tell a life story or family history with 60,000 photos.”
Learn all about the Army Navy “E” Award, a.k.a. the Excellence in War Production Award (WWII).
Study sheds light on how the timing of memory is encoded in the hippocampus.
Singer Billie Eilish set to release photo book filled with personal memories.
Read the current issue of Brevity.
California–based personal historian Perry Hamilton reflects on a wedding.
Preserving memories one image at a time
Short Takes
Life Story Links: January 5, 2020
Ways of remembering, first-person essays worth your time, and efforts to tell stories of real peoples from all walks of life: new reads for the new year.
“The years on someone’s gravestone are when they lived. The dash represents how they lived.”
—David Allen Lambert
![On this day in 1920, the Boston Red Sox sold Babe Ruth to the New York Yankees for $125,000 in what would come to be known as the Curse of the Bambino. Pictured above: Lou Gehrig, George Herman [Babe] Ruth and Tony Lazzeri in a 1927 photograph by Un…](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/55d35604e4b08af97dadd334/1608672183720-I6KA9WATTCEDFFYYW7K5/lou-gehrig-babe-ruth-tony-lazzaeri-yankees.jpg)
On this day in 1920, the Boston Red Sox sold Babe Ruth to the New York Yankees for $125,000 in what would come to be known as the Curse of the Bambino. Pictured above: Lou Gehrig, George Herman [Babe] Ruth and Tony Lazzeri in a 1927 photograph by Underwood & Underwood, courtesy The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs: Photography Collection, The New York Public Library.
All Peoples
SHOULD OLD ACQUAINTANCE BE FORGOT?
“From the pews of a church where white deacons once refused to seat African Americans, a group of Black singers in Alabama reminds us why preserving our memories of this historic year is vital—even if we'd rather just leave 2020 behind.” Take three minutes and forty-five seconds to relish the sounds and watch here:
MAKING HISTORY RELATABLE
The Canadian War Museum made a conscious effort to include a diversity of voices in its latest exhibit, “Forever Changed: Stories from the Second World War,” which turns to individual stories to make an impact. “You learn something about the person—maybe it’s hopeful, maybe it’s sad, maybe it’s scary—but each one stands on its own as something that you can feel a connection to.”
SHARE YOUR PERSONAL HISTORY
Are you an immigrant of color in America? NPR invites you to share a short audio clip telling about your family’s history involving “themes of identity and assimilation in America” for a new project looking at our country’s melting pot.
Flickers from the Past
AH, MEMORIES!
Dan Rodrick writes that memories “are like old toys that need to be taken from storage and wound up to make sure they still work. If you don’t do that, they stop speaking to you, and one day you’ve forgotten the sound of your father’s voice.”
“THE GHOST ON THE ZOOM CALL”
Judy Bolton-Fasman reflects on the weekly group video calls she has with her mom, who is in a nursing home, and “the times she sees her mother, my abuela, inhabiting a Zoom cubicle…. Abuela has been dead for over forty years.”
IN LETTERS
“There will be no (or vanishingly few) books of collected emails, and who would want them?” Dwight Garner wonders in this piece mourning the letters that will no longer be written, and remembering the great ones that were.
First Person Reads Worth Your Time
SELF-DISCOVERY THROUGH READING
For Jenny Offill, “Mrs. Dalloway is…[a book] to which I have mapped the twists and turns of my own autobiography over the years. Each time [I reread it], I have found shocks of recognition on the page, but they are always new ones, never the ones I was remembering.”
A VIRTUAL BEST-OF
The editors at Narratively (“human stories, boldy told”) have picked their favorite stories from the past year, and I recommend perusing their list. A few of my favorites:
“I Quit My Job at 50 to Reinvent Myself. Pro Tip: Don’t Do This.” by Ivy Eisenberg, laced with a wonderfully acerbic self-deprecating wit and canny cultural touchstones
“Snowed in with a Ghost” by Krista Diamond: “‘Building’s haunted,’ the landlord said, with more boredom in his voice than the statement merited. ‘Ramona. That’s the ghost’s name. She was here when this was a brothel.“”
“My Secret Life as a Coronavirus Nomad” by JB Nicholas: “As a freelance journalist, I’ve struggled financially for years. Then the pandemic hit and I got thrown on the street. But I will go on — I always do.”
...and a Few More Links
A beloved WWII photo comes to life in a virtual reunion.
A year-by-year glance over the first ten years of The Public Domain Review
Tips for anyone considering creating a family website
A look back at “the lives they lived”: remembering some of the artists, innovators and thinkers we lost in the past year
Short Takes