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Life Story Links: November 30, 2021
This week's memory-keeping roundup includes audio recommendations, compelling personal essays, new memoirs, plus personal history news and trends.
“Lots of my food has a story to go along with it, and lots of my stories have some food to go along with them, too.”
—Ellen Stimson
Midnight supper at Nan Hannegan's twentieth birthday party, May 1943, Niagara Falls, New York; her mother took in girl war workers as boarders. Photograph by Marjory Collins, courtesy Library of Congress Digital Collection.
Listen Up
TALES OF LIFE AND MUSIC
Two musicians (and writers), Dave Grohl and Aimee Mann, shared stories from their lives in conversations held as part of the recent New Yorker Festival. Listen to the audio here.
DOCUMENT YOUR FAMILY HISTORY
This episode of NPR’s podcast Life Kit offers truly great (actionable!) tips for recording the “precious sounds of our biological or chosen families that we capture to help us understand who they are and to give us insights into who we are, too.” Click below to listen:
Recent First Person Reads of Note
KEEPING UP APPEARANCES
“My parents were good-looking, sexy, book-loving. They shone on each other, basking in the shared light, with their five kids just outside the glow.” Sarah Paley on the reliability of a mother’s love.
NAME AS DESTINY
“I feel the weight of my name over my head like a hood—warm and comfortable but a little disorienting. I am constrained by the grief and by the love it represents. Ten letters so specific, I am unsure how to wear them.” Sara Horowitz introduces herself.
Memory-Keeping Miscellany
UNIQUE HOLIDAY GIFT IDEAS
Last week I shared three specific ideas for meaningful gifts that put memories front and center, including helpful DIY tips for those so inclined, plus how to work with a pro to get them done.
DRAWING ROOMS
“I like to look at buildings as kind of like characters in our lives. We have commitments to buildings. We see buildings and we feel things and we feel connected to them.” How one artist keeps the memories of places alive.
Up Next: New Memoirs
READING LIST
“This year’s best nonfiction illuminated complicated subjects, deepened our understanding of history, and pulled back the curtain on fascinating lives.” This list from The Washington Post includes some of 2021’s best memoirs.
MEL BROOKS WRITES HIS MEMOIRS
“Why don’t you write your life story?” Mel Brooks’s son said to him during the pandemic. “Just tell the stories in the book that you told me when I was growing up, and you’ll have a big, fat book.” Indeed, the 95-year-old actor has lived a memoir-worthy life.
Proof Positive
WHO IS THE CAREGIVER OF YOUR FAMILY NARRATIVE?
According to research, the most helpful history for young people is “the oscillating family narrative”—a story of ups and downs, successes and setbacks, that helps children know that they belong to something bigger than themselves.
“THE RISE OF BESPOKE MEMOIRS”
“Since the start of lockdown the demand for bespoke memoirs has skyrocketed,” reports The Times of London. What’s behind the boom, and what’s your story worth, wonders the reporter.
...and a Few More Links
Their Holocaust testimonies shared details that helped reunite them decades later.
Mali Bain shares three books that may—or may not—help you get unstuck when writing your memoir.
Shelley Blanton-Stroud on the different ways we mythologize the past
The life and legacy of Stephen Sondheim
Who owns a recipe? An interesting read for anyone considering undertaking a heritage cookbook.
Short Takes
Life Story Links: November 16, 2021
This week's roundup includes a wealth of stories about memoir (both writing and reading), some fun reads about food memories and recipe preservation, and more.
“Stories in families are colossally important. Every family has stories: some funny, some proud, some embarrassing, some shameful. Knowing them is proof of belonging to the family.”
—Salman Rushdie
Autumn vibes on a vintage Thanksgiving postcard
Personal Stories on the Page
AN EIGHT-DECADES JOURNAL
“This page, these pages, these volumes are a labyrinth I cannot find my way out of. I have wasted a life in writing them. They are without value. And yet they’ve helped keep me sane,” Claude Fredericks wrote in what The New Yorker calls “the most ambitious diary in history.”
PARALLEL STORIES DIVERGE
One of my favorite memoir writing teachers, Joyce Maynard, remembers her mother and reflects on the once severed, ever-evolving relationship with her sister—the “only other person on Earth to know what it was to have Fredelle Bruser Maynard for her mother.”
THE POWER OF THE EPIGRAPH
“The story of writing my memoir is the story of what the body knows before the conscious mind follows,” Jan Beatty writes in this piece on how two dictionaries helped her define the terms of her adoption memoir.
ESSENTIAL READS FOR WRITERS
The first step in writing your life story book, the most daunting by far, says British Columbia–based personal historian Mali Bain, is creating your “messy first draft.” Here she suggests two books to help guide you through that process.
GAL ABOUT TOWN
“The early chapters [of Patricia Highsmith: Her Diaries and Notebooks, 1941-1995] are special. They comprise one of the most observant and ecstatic accounts I’ve read…about being young and alive in New York City.”
So They Say
CHALLENGING CONVERSATIONS
After years on the road giving presentations and engaging in deep conversations, performer Michael Fosberg—who recommends using personal stories to foster connection—has created seven tools to help foster authentic dialogue surrounding difficult issues of race and identity.
PASSING ON AN HEIRLOOM
“I am keenly aware that younger generations don’t always like the things their elders leave to them,” Hazel Thornton wrote in a letter to her niece. You may be surprised by how her mom’s good silverware was received by that niece.
HEAR HERE
“These stories will continue to evolve as we grow from overviews to deeper and more personal stories, more contextual stories, that move us. As we always say, it’s about the right story at the right time.” Kevin Costner on why he invested in an audio storytelling app.
PRICELESS AUDIO
“I’d really like to just give him a big fat kiss,” says the voice coming through the reel-to-reel tape. That voice belongs to the father of Rep. Dean Phillips—the father he never met because he died in the Vietnam War when Phillips was only six months old. Listen in as the lawmaker describes “one of the great blessings of my life”:
A Feast of Memories
DISHING UP STORIES
“As a fellow who has worked with senior citizens for decades, [Mike] Wallace said he grew to understand just how important it is that family histories be preserved, and he decided to start with his own parents.” Now he offers up 20 questions to use during your own holiday gathering.
FAMILY POTLUCK
Take advantage of your next holiday get-together to start preserving your food heritage with these tips for gathering family, recipes, and memories.
MEMORABLE MEALS
“How do we go about creating spaces for deep human connection around our family table? How do we serve up memories to last a lifetime at our next holiday gathering?” Texas-based video biographer Whitney Myers on honoring the people behind our most memorable get-togethers.
A FIVE-GENERATION TRADITION
“It’s amazing how if you don’t ask your grandparents...what they lived through you don’t hear all these stories.” Becca Gallick-Mitchell shares the story of her great-grandmother’s turkey kreplach and how her grandmother made them—at age seven—the night her mother went into labor.
...and a Few More Links
Sharing personal stories about his wife, journalist Cokie Roberts, was therapeutic during his time of grieving.
Shoah Foundation’s virtual archive was purchased by CSUN Library to preserve history.
“Why depth interviewing is essential to understanding individuals”
Julie McDonald Zander offers a series of questions to help you pay tribute to your parents.
New book tells the story of the invention of Betty Crocker, tracing the personal history of a fictional character many thought was real.
Florida–based personal historian Zoe Morrison gets the story behind one couple’s cuckoo clock collection.
Alan Cumming discusses his new memoir, Baggage.
Short Takes
Life Story Links: November 2, 2021
This biweekly curated reading list includes insights into recent celeb memoirs plus helpful tools & resources for anyone who wants to preserve their stories.
“No harm is done to history by making it something someone would want to read.”
—David McCullough
Vintage news photo of woman suffrage headquarters on Upper Euclid Avenue, Cleveland, circa 1912, with editor’s marking of “A,” “B,” and “C” as a guide for identifying key figures: A, Miss Belle Sherwin, president, National League of Women Voters; B, Judge Florence E. Allen (holding the flag); and C, Mrs. Malcolm McBride. Photographed by Harris & Ewing and International (New York), courtesy Library of Congress.
The Weight of Our Words
NARRATIVES OF TRAUMA
“Hearing survivors’ stories is absolutely healing for other survivors,” Amita Swadhin, founder of a nonprofit dedicated to sharing the stories of LGBTQIA+ Black, indigenous people, and people of color who have survived child sexual abuse.
HISTORY IS NOT FIXED
There is no definitive history, and we as oral historians and storytellers have a responsibility to preserve the truth amidst biases and shifting perspectives, opines family archivist Amanda Lacson.
REAL FAMILY STORIES, FICTIONALIZED
When famed novelist John Updike wrote a short story about her father—using many aspects lifted directly from real life alongside one that was decidedly not—poet Molly Fisk was forced to confront the secret truths that lie in fiction.
Preserving Family Legacies
FOOD AND FAMILY
Get the whole family involved in saving stories and favorite holiday recipes with these three easy and fun Thanksgiving memory-keeping ideas.
FOR THE DESCENDANTS
"Every personal history has its own unique set of circumstances that make it valuable even if it's just to your family," historian Dustin Galer said.
REVISITING ARTIFACTS
“The visceral experience of touching those photos and memorabilia made my personal history so tangible.” When a writer begins cleaning through all the stuff in her basement, “buried treasures emerge.”
Holocaust Testimony & War History
PASSING FROM LIVING MEMORY
“There are so few people alive who are actually part of this,” Daniel Mendelsohn said. “[The Holocaust] is in danger of becoming abstracted. It’s in danger of losing the fine-grained human reality, the little things people remember, and that, to me, is very anguishing.”
“THERE IS NO OPPOSING VIEW”
“I have nothing to say to the principal from Texas who thinks we need to have books with opposing views of the Holocaust,” Ilana Wiles writes in this thoughtful piece. “I hope that being vocal and telling our story, instead of keeping it hidden or shrouded in secrecy, will help our family continue to heal.”
PERSONAL STORIES REVEAL WWII HISTORY
The Imperial War Museum in London has unveiled new exhibitions entirely dedicated to the Second World War, including personal stories from 100 individuals from more than 30 countries:
Public Personalities, Private Stories
“ALL ABOUT MY SISTERS”
“Over a period of seven years, Wang [Qiong] filmed her parents, siblings and relatives from within the emotional thicket of their lives, capturing moments of piercing, private intimacy.” Filmmaker traces the tragic effects of China’s one-child policy on her family.
MYSTERY SOLVED
“Our archives contain multitudes. They open us to a world that helped to frame our own lives, though it can often feel inaccessibly distant. It’s always there, just waiting to be found, and to give up its closely-held secrets to those willing to look.” On recovering the history of actor David Duchovny’s grandfather, a Yiddish writer.
BUSTING INTO THE BOYS’ CLUB
Katie Couric’s new memoir, Going There, “might as well be subtitled ‘Owning This,’ starting with rattlesome family skeletons: subdued Judaism on one side, ‘blighted with racists’ on the other,” writes a reviewer.
RECONSIDERING THE MAN
“There’s a paradoxical pain built into reading a biography of someone we thought we knew well: In getting to know him better, he somehow morphs into a stranger.” How two new additions to the Anthony Bourdain canon contribute to his legacy.
“BERNSTEIN’S WALL”
“In a series of archival interviews that anchor the 105-minute film and provide its narration, [Leonard] Bernstein—who died in 1990 at age 72—muses on the role of the artist in society and the power of music to transform hearts and minds.”
...and a Few More Links
Memoirist Joyce Maynard announces winners of her 2021 personal narrative essay contest.
Penn Libraries acquires the personal papers of historian and activist Elizabeth Fee.
This four-week course in November is geared to help you write your memoir.
“I would have to revise the final manuscript of my life.”
Short Takes
Life Story Links: October 18, 2021
A curated collection of recent stories about the power of telling our stories, recent memoir reviews, and how things can be imbued with special memories.
“Memoirs are the backstairs of history.”
—George Meredith
Children at a Halloween party in Osage Farms, Missouri, October 1939. Photograph by Arthur Rothstein, courtesy Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.
In the Books
MEMOIRS IN PIECES
Reading works by others to inspire our own writing is a humbling and essential practice. Last week I reviewed three books that use shorter vignettes to create a compelling portrait of the writers—I hope they inspire YOU!
TUCCI TIME
Actor and memoirist Stanley Tucci “traces his love of food to his family. His mother, an excellent cook, would send him to school with sandwiches made from the previous night’s eggplant parmigiana, while he jealously eyed his friends’ peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.” Read an excerpt here.
SHOWBIZ LIVES OF YORE
Hollywood veterans Ron and Clint Howard were inspired to co-author their new memoir, The Boys: A Memoir of Hollywood and Family, when they were going through old family photos while preparing for their father’s memorial service:
Artifacts from the Past
HANDKNIT HEIRLOOM, STITCHED WITH LOVE
“‘You know what's in here?’ I blurted out to the shipping clerk—even though I could see he was busy and cranky and probably aching for his shift to be over. ‘I'm sending a family heirloom to my grandson in Europe. It’s my mother’s handknit sweater so he can give it to his child, my first great-grandchild!’”
THE LEGACY WE LEAVE
“We have all heard the saying, ‘success leaves clues.’ Speak of your successes and failures as a means of providing perspective to those who will ride on their ancestor’s coattails in the century ahead.” On leaving not just a financial legacy, but a legacy of meaning.
THAT OLD-SCHOOL VOICEMAIL
“I have an archive of everlasting audio that allows me to experience whatever memory I want, as many times as I want to. My loved ones’ voices will always be with me. Ready to be tapped on. Ready to make certain that I am never alone.” How her phone’s most annoying feature saved her life.
Transformative Words & Memories
“THE POWER OF BOOKS TO CHANGE LIVES”
“For me, telling and writing my story over and over was a part of healing,” memoirist Mondiant Dogon says of revealing his stories during two- or three-hour interview sessions with his cowriter Jenna Krajeski.
JOURNALING FOR ANXIETY
“When people use writing to express themselves, Dr. Wright said, they ‘increase emotional regulation, clarify life goals, find meaning, and give voice to feelings, which can help construct a meaningful story.’”
“HE DIED AMONG HIS MEMORIES”
“In one email he reminded us of what his grandmother whispered every time she kissed him goodbye: ‘Sciaddu miu’—Sicilian for ‘my breath.’’ Gina Rae La Cerva revisits her grandfather’s recipes along with her Sicilian heritage.
THE ETHICS OF ARTISTIC APPROPRIATION
“[With] a growing interest, in some publishing circles, in ‘own voices’ and ‘lived experience’…a premium is placed on authors’ personal familiarity with the worlds they summon. There’s a corresponding sense that the person who inhabited a story in real life should get the first crack at fictionalizing it.” If you’ve followed the controversy surrounding the “Bad Art Friend,” then this is a rather arresting read.
...and a Few More Links
The 10 best biographies of 2021 according to Barnes & Noble
How on earth do you distill an entire life in one single photo book?
Man works to preserve photos his father shot of Pakistan’s people in the era of the country’s founding
Virtual book talk: “How Yiddish Changed America and How America Changed Yiddish”
An excerpt of In the Weeds: Around the World and Behind the Scenes with Anthony Bourdain by Tom Vitale.
Short Takes
Life Story Links: October 5, 2021
This week’s roundup includes the best in first-person storytelling, the scoop on new memoirs, explorations of how memory works, & plenty of family history fun.
“Put it before them briefly so they will read it, clearly so they will appreciate it, picturesquely so they will remember it and, above all, accurately so they will be guided by its light.”
—Joseph Pulitzer
Vintage photo of kids playing football, October 1947, by Wallace Kirkland for LIFE magazine; © Time.
Celebrating Hispanic Heritage
VIVAN LOS VOCES
in collaboration with StoryCorps, AARP has launched “Vivan Las Voces” (Long Live the Voices), a national audio story collection project dedicated to capturing the diverse stories and experiences of the U.S. Latino community. Head to StoryCorps Connect to record your conversation, and tag it #VivanLosVoces to become part of the permanent collection.
KICKOFF STORYTELLING EVENT OCT. 25
The Power of YOUR Stories—Hispanic Heritage Celebration is a free online event on Monday, October 25, 2021 at 12pm ET. Panelists will weave stories connected to caregiving, food, family, and more, and hope to inspire folks at home to record their own stories.
TAKING IT TO SOCIAL MEDIA
Latino individuals “from San Francisco to Seattle to Miami are reflecting on their family’s history and contributions in celebratory social media posts highlighting their relatives' and ancestors' work and journeys.”
Meet the Storytellers
A CONVERSATION BETWEEN STORYTELLERS
“I’m always surprised. I still can’t believe that I gave birth to you. And I feel the same way about the stories.” Writer Meg Wolitzer interviews her mother, Hilma, also a writer, for the first time.
“TAKING BACK MY OWN HISTORY”
“Betty has an amazing ability to share her own story in a really personal and vulnerable way—not so people know more about her, but so they understand that they too have a story. We all have a history—and it’s just as important as the history we learn in school.” Meet the fabulous, 100-year-old park ranger Betty Reid Soskin.
GRATITUDE, ALWAYS
For years I’ve shied away from sharing praise about the books I create (and the experiences clients have partnering with me to make them). Thanks to a few fellow creative entrepreneurs for the push to not only share some testimonials, but to celebrate them!
Memoir & First-Person Storytelling
MEMORY, IDENTITY, AND STORY
“Rather than prioritizing confession and catharsis, today’s authors are focusing on the question of who gets to share their version of things and interrogating the form, along with themselves.” Megan O’Grady on how recent literary memoirs take a different tack.
WALDORF STORIES
In honor of its 90th anniversary, NYC’s Waldorf Astoria hotel has created a website to share stories through videos, memorabilia, and essays. The oral history hub kicks off with curated selections from workers and guests (including a couple who hid a time capsule in their wedding suite).
THE TALENTED MS. HIGHSMITH
“The eight thousand pages of diaries and notebooks [novelist Patricia Highsmith] left behind—an edited version of which will be published this November—depict an engaged, social, and optimistic youth.”
NAMING THAT EXPERIENCE
“Eldest daughter of an immigrant household. For a phrase I’d never heard before, it immediately summoned an avalanche of memories.” Ruth Madievsky with an interesting take on learning lessons on diasporic identity from meme culture.
“THE STORYTELLER”
W.G. Sebald’s books suggest that we are powerless to remember adequately and powerless to forget, according to a review of new biography Speak, Silence: In Search of W.G. Sebald by Carole Angier.
Family History Fun
ROAD TRIP TO THE PAST
After being a stranger to family reunions for 64 years, Zoe Morrison, a personal historian in Florida, drove more than 3,000 miles in search of bits of her own family history.
GAMIFYING HISTORY?
Svoboda 1945: Liberation, a new video game from an independent Prague-based studio (preview below), includes interviews with real actors and historically accurate memories of people who lived through WW2. “We believe that games are a great medium for telling stories and have the power to tackle serious issues,” the lead designer said.
Memory Bank
THE LONG GAME
“Memory is an unruly machine, embedded in a Russian nesting doll of systems and circuits that is the brain,” Hannah Seo writes in this thoughtful look at how making predictions may impede memories from encoding.
POSSIBLE BOOST TO MEMORY RETENTION
A new discovery about the effects of magnetic brain stimulation could provide a way to improve episodic memory in people with conditions such as dementia.
...and a Few More Links
Would it surprise you to learn that the original paper ship manifests from Ellis Island no longer exist?
How making Nuclear Family helped documentarian Ry Russo-Young come to terms with her past
Are video games “crucial to the ‘creation of public knowledge of the past’”?
Jim Sheeler, who turned the simple obituary into a high and reverent art, has died.
Short Takes
Life Story Links: September 21, 2021
From memories out of the box (the boxes in your attic, that is) to the craft of writing memoir, this week's curated roundup has plenty to inspire and instruct.
“When you write your family history, be a recording angel and record everything your descendants might want to know.”
—William Zinsser
Vintage photo of Mr. and Mrs. Harold Garrity and family at home in Yonkers, New York, circa 1942, photographed by Arthur Rothstein.
Stories from Life
HISTORY THROUGH A PERSONAL LENS
“I don’t know if the horse had died or simply fainted with heat exhaustion. The peddler was slapping the horse in the face, yelling and cursing at the stricken animal in a futile attempt to force it to stand up.” Scenes from the Great Depression in NYC through the eyes of a boy.
DELVING INTO THE PAST
“The people from my past became like characters…. I found a lot of information that shows how people in my family tree thought alike. We would have been like best friends had we grown up at the same time.” On building a family legacy.
FINDGING HEMINGWAY
“Interweaving his eventful biography—a life lived at the ultimately treacherous nexus of art, fame, and celebrity—with carefully selected excerpts from his iconic short stories, novels, and non-fiction, the [now-streaming] series reveals the brilliant, ambitious, charismatic, and complicated man behind the myth, and the art he created.”
“In order to have something new to write, he had to have something new to live.” This panel discussion, “Hemingway and Biography,” happened back in May but I only just discovered it and thought others might be interested, as well.
The Craft of Memoir
OUT OF THE DARK
“So when you write about your life, don’t skip over the hard parts. What would be the point? Who would you be fooling? Yourself? Oh please.” Abigail Thomas asserts that vulnerability is a memoirist’s strength.
TALKING ABOUT TOURETTE’S
Salt Lake City–based personal historian Elizabeth Thomas offers up a few tips for memoirists who want to address a physical disability in their writing, using recent book The World's Strongest Librarian by Josh Hanagarne as a model.
Memories Out of the Box
THE VOICE OF THINGS
“I found that going through my accumulations became an ongoing encounter with everyone I’ve been on the way to whoever I am now,” Sven Birkirts writes in this meditation on why we keep what we keep.
PHOTO LEGACY
“Long after I’m gone, and my son becomes the steward of our family stories, these photos will remain. They will live on. They will speak across generations, saying, ‘I was here. I mattered to someone. I left a legacy of love. I helped start your story.’” Rachel LaCour Niesen on leaving a legacy of love.
YOUR LIFE IN 30 THINGS
Listen in as Martie McNabb discusses a community challenge she recently launched around choosing 30 objects that can tell your life story—and why so many people have trouble discerning which sentimental items to keep and which to get rid of:
In the Books
DRAW YOUR LIFE
Last week I shared some artful memory-keeping ideas from the world of sketch journaling plus the books to help you begin to draw your life, no pressure.
ONE-HOUR INTERVIEW = 5,000-WORD CHAPTER
“I realized that if writing was not my strong point, it didn’t make much sense to start with it, over-invest, and become frustrated with a behavior I personally found hard to do.” Barry O’Reilly on working with a writing partner.
...and a Few More Links
Journalist Ron Steinman shares memories of helping his Vietnamese family resettle in Maryland after the Vietnam War, and makes parallels to the plight of Afghan refugees today.
Ancestry corrals three leaders from tech world to help grow business.
On getting past writer’s block (and the kitchen table as hub for story sharing)
Short Takes
Life Story Links: September 7, 2021
A thoughtfully curated list of recent stories on how to write memoir, preserve memories, organize photos, and leave a legacy for the next generation.
“History isn’t about dates and places and wars. It’s about the people who fill the spaces between them.”
—Jodi Picoult
Vintage photograph of women picking carrots in Camden County, New Jersey, October 1938, by Arthur Rothstein, Farm Security Administration, Office of War Information Photograph Collection, courtesy Library of Congress Photo Archive.
Safeguarding Photo Memories
EDUCATIONAL OPPORTUNITIES
September is Save Your Photos Month and there are a wealth of free video sessions geared to DIY memory-keepers. You can register once to gain access to all the workshops throughout the month. A few to have on your radar:
Three simple ways to create a photo legacy
Five tips for downsizing prints and memorabilia
Treasure hunt: finding the gems
Capturing family stories
Manageable memory keeping
Create a family archive
Tell your story: family history
SAME AS IT EVER WAS
“I remember the bonding and the togetherness of those times maybe even more than the actual photographs,” Kenneth Dickerman writes about huddling around a slideshow of family photos when he was a child in this review of Snapshots 1971-77.
Fragments of Recent Memoir Writing
THE PROMISE OF THE AMERICAN DREAM
“Most of all, I liked that I could help Ba Ba believe that one day, no one would think we were immigrants, that we really and truly belonged here.” Read an excerpt from Beautiful Country: A Memoir by Qian Julie Wang.
DIVERGING PATHS
Dawn Turner, author of Three Girls From Bronzeville, visits the neighborhood where she grew up in Chicago—where she saw “drug dealers beside surgeons, prostitutes beside university scholars”—and reflects on different paths taken from the same place.
Memory-Keeping Miscellany
CARETAKERS OF AN INVALUABLE ARTIFACT
A family hid their Bible in an attic as Nazis invaded. Almost 80 years later, it was reunited with the family’s heirs; a small postcard tucked inside the Bible confirmed its original owner.
WISDOM FROM ADVERSITY
Last week I wrote about three professional lessons I learned during the pandemic, including that human connection transcends technology.
ROSH HASHANAH FOOD HERITAGE
The recipe for chef Michael Solomonov’s coffee-braised brisket, a signature family recipe that began with his grandmother Betty, has evolved with each generation.
Write Your Life
FREE 5-DAY WRITING CHALLENGE NEXT WEEK
“We specifically look at key firsts throughout each decade of your life and demystify how to write these defining stories,” Patricia Charpentier says of her new FREE weeklong course. Registration closes at 11:59 p.m. ET on Monday, September 13, 2021. Click here to see a video invitation from Patricia with more details about the challenge.
...and a Few More Links
Matthew Nickerson, founder of the Private Historian, is profiled in Classic Chicago Magazine.
Book Riot’s list of 12 great indigenous memoirs
Creative activities to plot your life and revisit your memories
The story of J.P. Morgan’s ‘personal librarian’—and why she chose to pass as white
Raphael Simon on whose material is whose when everyone in the family is a writer
Some fun back-to-school memories
Check out the latest issue of Dorothy Parker’s Ashes.
Short Takes
Life Story Links: August 24, 2021
A curated collection of recent stories about writing—and reading—memoir, creating lasting legacies, and telling family stories in engaging, truthful ways.
“A writer—and, I believe, generally all persons—must think that whatever happens to him or her is a resource. All things have been given to us for a purpose, and an artist must feel this more intensely. All that happens to us, including our humiliations, our misfortunes, our embarrassments, all is given to us as raw material, as clay, so that we may shape our art.”
—Jorge Luis Borges
Vintage postcard of Trinity Church in Boston, 1899. Photograph courtesy of The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs: Photography Collection, The New York Public Library Digital Collections, 1898-1931.
Conversations Worth Having
JOURNEY TOGETHER
A memoir should be a conversation, not a monologue, Beth Kephart opines in this excerpt from her latest craft book, We Are the Words: The Master Memoir Class. “Find a place for a ‘we’ inside your pages. Step down from the stage. Lower the lights. Mingle with the audience.”
INTERVIEW SUBJECTS, GET READY!
Know someone who is about to be interviewed about their life? Share these six tips for getting comfortable with the idea of stepping up to the mic and telling great stories.
Behind the Memoirs
WHEN GUILT, GRIEF, AND SHAME COLLIDE
“I’m revealing major flaws about myself that I’m going to get judged for, but that’s what makes a story interesting,” memoirist Rachel Michelberg tells Marion Roach Smith on the QWERTY podcast. “I wrote it because it was my truth, and there was shame at the time, but there isn’t shame anymore.”
“WE SHARE THE SAME SKY”
“‘I had so much of my grandmother’s stuff that I probably could have written a biography of her life without ever leaving my bedroom,’ said [Rachael] Cerrotti, while sitting in her apartment in Portland. ‘But I wanted to hear the language, see the landscape, and explore what it all meant in my life.’” (I am completely engrossed in this the memoir right now, fyi!)
GUIDE TO GRIEVING
“It wasn’t even a year since my father had died, I hadn’t completed my Jewish mourning cycles and rituals, I was still a raw and cracked egg, and this book was born amidst my half-cooked grief.” Merissa Nathan Gerson on writing her grief in Forget Prayers, Bring Cake.
‘REMEMBERINGS’ OF A SINGER-SONGWRITER
“Early on, [Sinéad O’Connor] realizes, ‘In real life you aren’t allowed to say you’re angry but in music you can say anything.’ It turns out that she thought real life and music were the same thing.”
THE MORRIS SISTERS
“It didn’t take me long to realize that for women who were so famous within my family, there didn’t seem to be much written about them in the world.” Julie Klam on tracking down the truth and telling the story of her notable relatives.
Creating Legacies
PRESERVING HER FATHER’S PHOTO LEGACY
“I am so proud of my father’s body of work and the fact that his legacy will now live on in perpetuity…. Also, this legacy will no longer be my responsibility. For that, I am greatly relieved.” Houston–based video biographer Stefani Elkort Twyford prepares and ships off her father’s photo archive, with pride and a twinge of sadness.
HONORING A QUIETLY JOYFUL SOUL
While most people visit StoryCorps to interview a loved one, Libby Stroik recorded memories of her grandfather on her own, as his memories were fading. “If I could ask him something now I think I would probably ask him what his secret was,” she said, “cause he always seemed so grateful for living.”
HIDDEN HISTORY
How Vancouver–based personal historian Mali Bain went from a box of photos and ephemera to a richly researched book about the uncle her client never met.
Video Inspiration
LIFE INSPIRES ART
“Dear son, Charles wrote on the last page of the journal, ‘I hope this book is somewhat helpful to you. Please forgive me for the poor handwriting and grammar. I tried to finish this book before I was deployed to Iraq. It has to be something special to you.’” The upcoming movie A Journal for Jordan, due out in December and based on a true story, was inspired by this original New York Times article by Dana Canedy and the 200-page father’s journal her partner wrote for their son. Here’s a preview of the film:
A NEW CHANNEL FOR FAMILY STORYTELLING
Jamie Yuenger, who has long produced legacy videos for families as founder of StoryKeep, is now offering private podcasting as another medium for story sharing and preservation. Here she gives a brief intro to the concept:
...and a Few More Links
North Carolina documentarian aims to preserve family histories with video heirlooms.
How blockchain could have saved the Library of Alexandria (and what it can do for future historical preservation)
Netflix’s Misha and the Wolves is “as much about storytelling as it is about the Holocaust.”
Why Billie Jean King finally took control of her own story
Short Takes