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Life Story Links: June 8, 2021
This week's curated reading list includes a handful of stories about the nature of memory and a wealth of good stuff related to memoir and life storytelling.
“People are story”
—Faith Gibson
1917 photograph of lifeguards on the beach in Long Beach, New Jersey, by M. Highsmith, part of her America Project; courtesy of the Carol M. Highsmith Archive, Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division.
Treasures from the Past
A CHRONICLE OF HISTORY
Until Anneliese M. Bruner was given a small book bound in red cloth that had been written by her grandmother in 1921, she never knew anyone in her family had been witness to the Tulsa race massacre. “There was no indication that this event had ever happened within my very own family,” she says.
FOUND: FAMILY PHOTO LEGACY
“Hopefully, by reclaiming my mom’s visual heritage, I’ve led the way to healing a bit of her past trauma,” writes Zoe Morrison, a digital archivist based in Florida who tracked down her mother’s family photos decades after they were lost.
The Nature of Memory
“GISTIFICATION”
“New research suggests that much like analog-era photos get washed out and lose perceptual details over time, vivid memories lose their feature-specific clarity through a process of ‘semantization’ or repeated remembering that only focuses on a memory's core elements.”
ON RETRIEVING MEMORIES
“Memory has sights and sounds and smells and emotions associated with it. Can we find those elements and say this is what the totality of one particular memory physically looks like?” Experiments over the years that have shed light on how our brains recover past experiences.
THE SCIENCE OF MEMORY
Neuroscientist Lisa Genova, author of the new book Remember, joins Kate and Oliver Hudson on their podcast to discuss what you need to create memories and why we remember only certain things.
Memoir & More
WRITING HER MOTHER
In Pure Flame: A Legacy, “Michelle Orange skirts the traps of the mother-daughter memoir by going beyond personal history. She interleaves memories of her mother and maternal grandmother with discussions of writing” by famous women, revealing differing views on feminism and motherhood.
WASHED ASHORE
“Each of us has a story, a need for connection, and a sense of whimsy. It’s a deeply human thing to share our thoughts, roll them up, and tuck them neatly inside a bottle…”
‘A RESPONSIBILITY TO REMEMBER’
Unsinkable tells the story of two brothers whose paths crossed on a ship, the USS Plunkett, in WWII. It builds upon a story that one brother told his family repeatedly over the years; and is fleshed out by a nephew who went digging into archives and interviewed shipmates to satisfy his curiosity—and tell a bigger story.
AN ARRAY OF VOICES
“I thought it was such a beautiful thing to have this literal chorus of voices speaking the truth of the African American experience.” The epic audiobook Four Hundred Souls gives voice to a community history of African Americans.
THE INEXHAUSTIBLE STORY OF YOU
“You are writing to bridge yourself to yourself, you’re writing to bridge yourself to family, and you are writing so that who you are in the moment that you are writing will always be there with you.” Beth Kephart in conversation with Alisha Crossley on the art of memoir:
TRUTH BE TOLD
“Some of these books were written by journalists, and a number were penned by writers who wedded research or oral histories to memoir.” Daisy Hernández investigates the intersection between journalism and memoir.
“THE ME YOU CAN’T SEE”
“Just sitting down and listening to somebody, there’s joy in that.” This new docuseries (preview above)—with storytelling at its core—aims to explore varied individuals’ experiences and shine a light on, simply, why we feel the way we do. As all personal historians know and preach, understanding comes from shared experience.
...and a Few More Links
An exploration: What’s worth recording, worth remembering?
The Creative Family Historian offers up ideas for using stock photos in family history books.
The pandemic is “a test case for the making of global memory in the new media ecology.”
Life Story Links: May 25, 2021
A curated reading list for memory-keepers, memoirists, family historians & storytellers for the week of May 24, 2021, including inspiring first-person writing.
“The only thing that counts in your journal is your passion and the freedom to write what is in your heart. This is your life, your portrait, and the person you are choosing to become all rolled up into one. Be juicy.”
—Terry Tempest Williams
Vintage postcard, circa 1915, depicting the Brooklyn Bridge and New York skyline, courtesy of the Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs: Picture Collection, The New York Public Library Digital Collections.
Preserving Our History
RECORDING RESOURCES
“Our elders have rich stories to share. There’s no better time than now to sit down and hit Record.” Wired magazine turns its attention to using technology to capture family history.
THROUGH A NEW LENS
Having conducted 250 interviews over a decade, Luke Holland’s documentary Final Account aims to preserve the memories of Germans who lived through the Holocaust. “The USC Shoah Foundation will incorporate these ‘perpetrator testimonies’ into its program for high-school students, preserving the recollections of this last surviving generation for posterity.”
Pictures & Stories
DIGITAL PHOTO MEMORIES
When Google Photos’ free storage ends on June 1, should you upgrade to a paid plan? The Wall Street Journal reports on cloud photo-backup options for ensuring that your family photo archive is preserved.
DON’T DO THIS
There’s one big mistake people make when resizing their digital photos for print, and I am on a mission to help you all avoid it.
BATTLE OF THE SUBWAY MAPS
When is a single conversation worthy of being recounted in a book? In this case, when the resulting decisions impacted both how NYC residents got around for decades and how designers approached real-world challenges.
The Stuff of Life
“THE THINGY-NESS OF THINGS”
“The odd object essay cannot hinge on ‘this tchotchke reminds me of my mother,’” Kren Babine writes. “Memory is faulty, subject to a thousand factors, and evidence—an object which shows that something exists or is true—holds no inherent value, because it is always subject to interpretation.”
HOUSE AS HOME
“As memoir writers we must ultimately wrestle with our beliefs about home.” Beth Kephart suggests a handful of starting places for writing the places that raised us.
FAVORITE THINGS
“Our thumbprints are all over the items we have collected and saved over the years.” Kate Manahan, an oral historian in Maine, finds that “for some people, talking about the things they love is just way easier than telling a ‘story.’”
MITIGATING OUR LOSSES
When disaster strikes, the loss of family treasures can be an unfortunate and devastating consequence. Archivist Rachael Woody offers help for channeling your emotional response into action, and preparing those treasures for the worst (checklist included).
Recent First-Person Reads Worth Your Time
VISITING (DEAD) ANCESTORS IN PRAGUE
“While couples embrace, while college students drink pivo, Czech beer, while parents push strollers, their kids licking zmrzlina, ice cream dribbling down chins from August heat, I curve inward with the weight of inherited memory.” Claire Sicherman connects her 13-year-old son with his roots.
LEARNING TO FIGHT
“Did I need to train like a superhero just to be a person in America? Maybe,” Alexander Chee, author of the essay collection How to Write an Autobiographical Novel, writes. “But if I thought of superheroes, it was because my father was like one to me, training me to be like him.”
DEPOSITS IN THE BANK OF MEMORY
“Something came into my head, and it was this: I must remember this moment for the rest of my life. It was a random resolution that arrived with the force of an epiphany.” Stephen Harrigan writes about his lifelong need for dropping memory anchors.
OUTSIDE, INSIDE
“The first time I dressed in men’s clothes, I looked in the mirror and cried. I pressed myself against the reflection. I wanted to press myself to the other side.” SJ Sindu writes “A Measure of Men.”
GOD AND GHOSTS
“My brother granted it was probably for the best that I didn’t attend the funeral. I was still in middle-school at the time and didn’t exactly have the neural wherewithal to process that sort of thing.” Barrett Swanson on the ones we leave behind.
...and a Few More Links
Registration is open for HippoCamp: A Conference for Creative Nonfiction Writers.
Book review: The Best of Brevity, an anthology celebrating the online journal’s 20 years of publishing flash creative nonfiction
New celebrity memoirs of interest: Rememberings by Sinead O’Connor and Brat by Andrew McCarthy
Short Takes
Life Story Links: May 11, 2021
Your biweekly dose of all things personal history—including fresh first person reads, photo printing help, and lots about the memories held in our possessions.
“One of the most significant facts about us may finally be that we all begin with the natural equipment to live a thousand kinds of life but end in the end having lived only one.”
—Clifford Geertz
Yes, today is Hostess Cupcake Day here in the United States! Rather than indulging in the sugary treat, let’s celebrate with a vintage advertisement, shall we?
Discover: Recent First Person Reads I’ve Loved
“MY MOTHER IN THERE”
A few weeks after her mother dies, writes Marie Mutsuki Mockett, “I am forgetting that my mother was sick. Her essence has clarified…and my mind is furiously picking through memories, panning for gold, holding on to the nuggets that were her.”
LIFE IN MINIATURE
“More recently, I’ve felt that the worthier challenge may lie not in resisting the occasional backwards glance, but in trying to see that child [I was] and her fictions with compassionate eyes.” Kate Guadagnino on the solace of her childhood dollhouse.
FIGHTING THE INEVITABLE
“The ‘law’ was passed down in my family like a hideous heirloom.” Anna Dorn on doing everything possible not to follow in her father’s footsteps.
“WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?”
“I never tired of talking to [my nieces and nephews] or playing with them; I’d happily volunteer for their parents’ less-favorite tasks, from diaper changes to dips in the pool. Pregnancy, though, still felt future state. But it would happen when the time was right. Right? Right.” Shelia Monaghan on the legacy of children.
Mementos, Memories, and Overwhelm
DISASSEMBLING A LIFE
Literary left-wing legend Frances Goldin had hoped that after she died, friends and loved ones could hold a “potluck shiva” in her home, “where people could take memorabilia and items they wanted or needed or that she had designated for them, while celebrating her life.” Covid had other ideas.
GRIEF, HIDDEN IN A STORAGE LOCKER
“My mother was kind and overly loving, yet she’d never told me about her life before me.” More than a decade after her mother’s death, Blake Turck finally has the emotional resolve to go through the stuff of her mom’s life—and learns that memories live inside us, not in things.
TCHOTCHKE CHALLENGES
“Especially with items of high sentimental and low financial value, documenting and sharing the stories and feelings associated with possessions can be a big step toward letting go.” Philadelphia–based personal historian Clémence R. Scouten offers advice for dealing with passed-down items to which we may hold an emotional attachment.
An Instinct to Preserve
FIGURING IT OUT AS SHE GOES
“Part of why I write about my own life, it’s my attempt to freeze all this ceaseless, endless, constant change,” says Alison Bechdel about her new memoir. “I just want to put down something that doesn’t move. Life is change.”
RECORDING LIFE
This senior “began making books for [each of her four children] on the day they were born, and presented each with a personal life history on their 60th birthday.” Now she is typing her memoir on a laptop her kids gave her.
VIDEO: UNINTENDED MEMOIR
Amy Tan: Unintended Memoir is an “intimate portrait [featuring] archival home movies, personal photographs,…as well as new interviews with Tan,” who speaks about traumas in her life and how writing helped her heal.
JEWISH STORY PARTNERS
“There is nothing like storytelling to foster connections and help us understand life’s deepest truths.” A new foundation aims to expand the range of stories told about Jewish lives.
Nitty Gritty Help
UM, WHY SO SMALL?
When many members of a family are contributing images to a memory book, chances are some of those pictures (maybe even your own) will not print well. Here are three common digital photo mistakes and how to avoid them.
...and a Few More Links
three new books about memory—and keeping it sharp
interesting infographic on the power of storytelling
Author Rachel Kushner’s new essay collection includes “eloquently written features about her personal history that are equal parts gripping and revealing.”
“The pandemic shaped my family for generations. Not COVID—the 1918 flu”
A new biography of Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, author of The Yearling
Short Takes
Life Story Links: April 27, 2021
For memory-keepers: A curated collection of recent stories about memoir (reviews & first person excerpts) and family history (as preserved through narrative).
“In guided autobiography, we encourage the use of metaphors; in the case of major branching points in life, we ask, ‘If your life is like a river, what caused it to flow in the directions it did?’”
—James Birren
Today, April 27, is National Tell a Story Day. This vintage photograph by Russell Lee shows the wife of a Farm Security Administration client reading to her son, April 1939. Image courtesy Library of Congress Digital Archive.
Exploring Family History Through Narrative
“THE WHOLE STORY“
“Listen to the songs your ancestors sing to you. Be mindful of the songs you sing to others.” The 2021 UCSF Last Lecture, delivered by Peter Chin-Hong, MD, encouraged exploring one’s personal history in order to find one’s true voice.
HERITAGE, QUESTIONS, STORIES
“We can’t tell the full story without each other.” Two women researched slavery in their family, but what they discovered held different meaning for each.
FORGING MEANING FROM TOUGH TIMES
“Survival becomes a pivotal point in our story that needs to be preserved. It is the part of our story that reminds us what we are capable of, what we can endure, and what we overcame.” Lisa Lombardi O’Reilly on “the times that remind.”
“DEAR FAMILY…”
Collected letters from Australian and New Zealand soldiers “held a sense of mana in the families, keeping the memory alive of someone that, in some cases, had died over a 100 years ago.”
MY GRANDMOTHER, THE SPY
“I was going through her things and found myself staring at a letter that I had seen in childhood and I didn't really understand. It had to do with some sort of covert work she had done for the British.” In a new podcast Enid Zentelis shares the story of her grandmother, who she learned was a WWII spy:
Click the image for a 3-minute video about Enid Zentelis’s mission to learn the truth about her late grandmother, a Hungarian-Jewish Holocaust survivor—and a spy. “I wondered how I could serve my grandmother’s story, and simultaneously communicate the effects of generational trauma; the way some family members succumb to it, and the way others turned it into a source of strength and determination,” Zentelis says.
Recommended First Person Reads
LOW COUNTRY LEGENDS
“Were those really the voices of loved ones long gone who called out my name in subway cars and expensive restaurants and while I brushed my teeth?” J. Nicole Jones on familiar ghosts and family legacies.
CROSSING BORDERS
“‘Berlin? Seriously?’ my Jewish friends marveled. If you want to bring conversation to a halt at your local Purim carnival, try mentioning that you’re relocating to the city where the Gestapo was headquartered.” Laura Moser on moving to the neighborhood where her grandfather lived before fleeing the Nazis.
LIFE IN THE DARK CITY
“When you are forty-three in New York City, raising children, you have already lost the New York that mattered to you at age twenty-three. The loss I am talking about is something else entirely.” Emily Raboteau on pandemic NYC.
THEIR STORIES ARE OUR STORIES
“Our stories are even richer and more complicated than we sometimes realize, especially stories that are the most familiar to us, the stories that have been passed down.” Menachem Kaiser in conversation about the ever-evolving nature of Holocaust memory and storytelling.
WRITING THROUGH GRIEF
“I wanted to write that person, share her writings, immortalize her in a small way—she who had not been able to author her legacy.” Maryanne O'Hara on turning to personal writing in the wake of her daughter’s death.
Hodgepodge
STORIES UNTOLD
“My life is not interesting enough” and “it’s too self-centered to write my memoir” top the list of reasons I hear for not writing about one’s life. Click to read about why I think these reasons are bunk.
FOUR MEMOIRS WITH REMARKABLY DIFFERENT APPROACHES
The University of Pennsylvania’s alumni magazine turns its attention to the writing lives of four of its cohorts including stories about “middle school memories, meditations on motherhood, a prismatic accounting of the self, and a long life well and furiously lived.”
AN ARCHIVAL PROJECT IN THE AGE OF COVID-19
In “Portraits of an Epicenter: NYC in Lockdown,” a group of creative college students share photo essays and written reflections of living through the pandemic. “Although the city was unified in this experience, no two experiences of the lockdown were the same.”
HONOR HER STORY
Mali Bain, a personal historian in British Columbia, Canada, says she has been inspired by her clients’ unique ideas for Mother’s Day gifts. Here, she shares a few of them.
Virtual Events that May Interest You
April 30: First conference of International Institute for Reminiscence and Life Review at its new home, UCONN School of Nursing
May 1: Virtual (paid) workshop: “The Power of a Legacy Letter and How to Write One”
May 19: Storykeep presents a free live webinar to acquaint you with private podcasting, a new tool for documenting and sharing family narratives and connecting family across generations.
...and a Few More Links
Short Takes
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