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Life Story Links: August 23, 2022
This week's curated reading list for family historians, memoirists, and memory-keepers of all kinds includes great learning opportunities and a film recommendation.
“Talk to those older generations. We sometimes dismiss that—we say, ‘Oh Grandma, she’s told the same story twenty times.’ Give her a prompt. Say ‘Grandma, what do you remember about shoes?’ … then the narration starts happening. Then the stories start happening.”
—Lisa Elzey
Vintage photo of a Regal movie theater in Southside, Chicago, April 1941. Photograph by Russell Lee, originally for the Office of War Information, courtesy of The Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Digital Collection.
In memorium
AN NBA LEGEND’S OBIT
““If he was out dining and got approached by someone asking for his signature, [Bill] Russell’s usual response was to instead ask the person to join him at the table to have a conversation about life. The autograph-seekers almost always declined. Oh, the stories they missed.” Here, photos help tell his personal history.
SHOOTING FOR THE STARS
StoryCorps mourns the passing of Nichelle Nichols, a Black American actress best known for her portrayal of Nyota Uhura in Star Trek. “Her career showed people of all races a future of possibility. Among those she inspired was a young Ronald E. McNair, who became the second Black person to enter space”:
EXPLORER OF AMERICA’S PAST
David McCullough, who said he thought of writing history as an art form, died last week. His obituary tells some of his story. “People often ask me if I’m working on a book,” he once said. “That’s not how I feel. I feel like I work in a book.”
The art—and value—of legacy-making
LET’S FLIP THE SCRIPT
It’s a common but wrong assumption that we’ve all heard as personal historians—that telling one's own stories is “narcissistic” or “self-centered.” Recently I wrote about why, in reality, it is an act of generosity.
THE CRAFT OF PERSONAL STORYTELLING
Storytelling School with The Moth is in session with a story about family and home told by Mariam Bazeed: Watch her story performance, then learn about the principles of ‘show don't tell’ and setting up ‘the world as it was.’
PRO BOOK DESIGN TIPS
Family photos aren’t the only images worth including in your family history or personal life story book. Consider including maps, family tree charts, and beautifully styled shots of your family heirlooms to elevate your book.
First person reads worth your time
WEAVING HIS PARENTS’ LIVES INTO A NARRATIVE
“My parents’ American addresses are a history of friendships and acquaintances: a spare room in someone’s attic, visits to family friends whom they’d heard about but never actually met, a summer job in a small town a few hours away, an opportunity in an unfamiliar, emerging field.”
TRUE STORY, WELL TOLD
“‘We are hearty buggers!’ Jane yelled to the sky.” Wisconsin–based personal historian Sarah White writes this slice-of-life reminiscence about weathering a storm—with tumblers of wine and the comfort of fire—with a friend.
“DON’T DESCRIBE IT, REMEMBER IT”
“A lovely day… I wish it meant something to me, but I am here for the wrong reason, and Venice is like a travel film through which I sit, impatient, waiting for something important.” Mavis Gallant was a dedicated diarist for 55 years; here, take a peek into passages from 1954.
WRITING THE TRUTH
“None of us, other than time-travelers and clairvoyants, can know the future, and most of us have difficulty making sense of our past.” William Dameron on why he wrote his memoir despite discouragement.
In conversation: asking, listening, making space
THE MEMORY GENERATION
“I’m really interested through The Memory Generation of saying, how do we make the past more present in our present? And in what ways might we do that in a shared experience with others?” oral historian Stephen D. Smith says of the podcast he co-created with Rachael Cerrotti. Find the latest episode here.
PERSONAL HISTORY Q&A
“Experienced personal historians combine the expertise of active listening, archiving of artifacts, genealogy, narrative writing, ghost-writing, book production, self-publishing, and more,” reads the introduction to this fun and informative interview with Connecticut–based professional Sarah Merrill.
TIME IS A COMMODITY
“I thought I had time to sit across a table from him and share stories. We had only ever skimmed the surface. We never had really captured his narrative the way I wanted to know it. Yet here we were, boarding an airplane to meet him at his final resting place instead.”
THE MAGIC OF STORY
“I can’t wait to foist this book on everyone,” Anne Lamott says of Between the Listening and the Telling: How Stories Can Save Us, a new book by Mark Yaconelli. Listen in as they discuss the transformational nature of stories:
Tokens of memory
WAYS OF LOOKING AT FAMILY
Maud Newton, author of Ancestor Troubles, says that many old family photos fed into her “obsession with ancestors.” Here she discusses visual inspirations for her memoir, including two specific old photos and a will bequeathing 12 slaves.
STEPPING INSIDE A PHOTOGRAPH
Musician Kevin Morby talks about how photography inspired his latest album, how he found ways to immerse himself in the memories of family, friends, and famous people, and how those memories became songs.
PUBLIC ACCESS
“The name of the game for any archive is to preserve and make available.” How the St. Louis Kaplan Feldman Holocaust Museum is making every Holocaust story, memory, and artifact in their collection sharable.
Looking back, finding meaning
A PORTAL BETWEEN TWO ERAS
Three Minutes: A Lengthening explores “the ways in which moving images can bring the past into the present, connecting us with human beings whose time on Earth was brutally cut short.” Watch the trailer:
THE MEMORY METAVERSE
“While studies suggest that traditional reminiscence therapy can significantly improve the well-being of older people, V.R. has the potential to make it more immersive and impactful. By putting on a headset, Mr. Faulkner could walk along the virtual Cliffs of Moher in western Ireland, just as he’d done with his wife several years earlier.”
“A MAP FOR THE MISSING”
“How do we fill spaces when there are deaths in our lives, or when we have people in our lives who don’t give us the answers, or who don’t give us the clarity that we’re looking for?” An interview with Belinda Huijuan Tang, who turned to fiction to help fill in the gaps in her own family history.
...and a few more links
Tuesday, September 6, 2022: “Researchers Remember” virtual book talk
A librarian collects all the things left in books, from love letters to old photos
Tips for parents on how to use family photos to encourage kids’ storytelling
Beth Kephart launches new series of Zoom webinars, “The Story of You”
Family business origin stories and the power of nostalgia
Short takes
Life Story Links: July 26, 2022
Personal historian Dawn Roode reads a lot about memoir, personal history, and memory-keeping—and she curates it every other week for family historians like you.
“If you don’t see that your story matters, chances are no one else will either. So even though it isn’t always easy, it’s important for you to find the strength to share your truth. Because the world needs to hear it.”
—Michelle Obama
What we pass down
FAMILY PICTURES
“Most photographs you come across have stories—you just don’t know them. I actually believe that the more that’s known about what a photograph shows, the more likely it is to survive.” Michael Johnston on the secret art of the family photo.
A MATRIARCH’S LEGACY
“This is the story of an heirloom that isn’t.” How a portrait of Jill Lepore’s Italian grandmother was lost and found and passed on to a new generation.
Memoir explorations
STUCK, FOR NOW
Last week I wrote about how I have been struggling with my own memoir writing, plus a three-step plan for a reset so I—and others struggling with project overwhelm—can get back on track.
QUESTIONS OF DESCENT
When the results of a DNA test change the family tree: Two new memoirs probe stories of uprooted identities, family origins, and uncovered secrets.
A KALEIDOSCOPE INTO A LIFE
“Memoir is always, it seems to me, a mix of power and vulnerability. You have the power of claiming the story and of claiming your interpretation of every part of it. And yet you are exposing.” Memoirist Margo Jefferson in conversation about the form.
WEAVING STORIES, UNRAVELING LEGACIES
When researching her ancestry in Colombia proves futile, Ingrid Rojas Contreras “relies instead on oral history, ultimately embracing its messy, unverifiable and disjointed nature” to write her memoir.
NARRATIVE MEDICINE
“These young doctors needed to tell their stories to one another. To process the significance of what they were doing every day, to reckon with the feelings that they were coming home with every night.” Jerome Groopman on Jay Wellons’s memoir, All That Moves Us, and why storytelling is part of being a good doctor.
Preserving pieces of the past
FADING FROM LIVING MEMORY
“You don’t need to tell people the entire narrative of the Holocaust, you just need the story of one victim to pass on with love.” Now is a “critical time” in preserving memories of Shoah’s survivors.
SECRET INGREDIENTS: PARIKA AND MEMORIES
“It’s the sweet burden of my origins and the everlasting loving memories of my grandmothers” that inspire Tibor Rosenstein, a Holocaust survivor, to preserve the legacy of Jewish-Hungarian cuisine in Budapest.
THE FUTURE OF THE PAST
An array of new artificial intelligence tools and memory-preservation programs “might change the way we collect history”—are they creepy or cool?
...and a few more links
Language, Please is “a living resource for all journalists and storytellers seeking to thoughtfully cover evolving social, cultural and identity related issues.”
A rare look at postwar Korea emerges from long-lost photos
Guidelines for writers giving feedback on work that discusses personal trauma
“Who Do You Think You Are?” has returned with new episodes on NBC.
Short Takes
Life Story Links: July 12, 2022
Personal historian Dawn Roode’s curated roundup of stories of interest to family historians includes first-person reads plus tips for life story preservation.
“Take nourishment from good stories…. Because it’s the art of the storyteller that reminds us that there is not just one single answer to human dilemmas.”
—Gianrico Carofiglio
Vintage photo of a father with his daughters on a merry-go-round during the Fourth of July carnival in Vale, Oregon, in 1941. Photograph by Russell Lee for the Farm Security Administration, courtesy of The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs: Photography Collection, The New York Public Library Digital Collections.
Pro tips for diy family history preservation
AND NOW, VISUAL STORYTELLING
When the writing of a memoir is finished (hurray!), the next step is gathering photographs to include in your printed book. Last week I shared my top tips for picking the best images to include in your life story book.
FOOD STORIES, GATHERED
“One of the best ideas for a family reunion is to make a family cookbook that documents all the family recipes (and recipe rivalries!) in one place.” Here, top tips on how to tackle your family cookbook together.
WRITING YOUR TRUTH
“When you include people besides you in your story (how can you not?), someone will not like what you write about them. They will call you liar. I don’t think that should stop you.” Vanessa Mártir on the complicated nature of writing about family.
Stories through stuff
FAMILY HISTORY CONNECTIONS
“I don’t see my great-grandfather’s imprisonment as a stain on the family, like ink spilled on the fabric of the baby quilt his daughter would go on to make for me,” writes Megan St. Marie, an Amherst, Massachusetts–based personal historian in this piece inspired by a family heirloom.
HUMAN STORIES TOLD THROUGH OBJECTS
“A young child’s diary, a favorite doll, a cookbook of family recipes, a report card, a Torah scroll smuggled to the United States, and a silver spoon found among the rubble at a concentration camp”—these are among the 750 artifacts accompanied by first-person testimonies in an expansive new permanent exhibition at the Museum of Jewish Heritage in Lower Manhattan.
HIS ABSTRACT ART IS HIS LEGACY
A neighbor was curious about George Westren and learned more about him after his death. Now he is helping cement the artist’s legacy by preserving—and showing—his artwork.
Recommended first person reads
AN UNEXPECTED ENCOUNTER
The few vintage images are as alluring as the words in this recounting of the downtown icon Michele Saunders’ “accidental getaway” with a literary legend James Baldwin.
“IT’S ALL ABOUT YEARNING”
“You look back through a reverse crystal ball at all the hoopla, sometimes not even believing you were there in that time... No time to sleep. No idea that you would someday grow old and no longer be the headline.” Susie Kaufman on nostalgia.
Stories and history
WRITERS PROJECT
Bookmark this collection to visit again and again: Contemporary writers reflect on 25 voices from the archives of The Atlantic—adding valuable context and linking to original stories that reflect a belief that ideas can change the world.
(JUST?) FAMILY LORE
“For a short time, our family’s history is the world’s history.” Chicago–based personal historian Nora Kerr on looking beyond the surface meaning of your family legends.
...and a few more links
Short takes
Life Story Links: June 28, 2022
Personal historian Dawn Roode curates a bi-weekly roundup of stories of interest to memory-keepers and memoirists. This week includes a rich array of pieces.
“To be courageous enough to look at the truth of our lives through our remembered experience is to be changed by it.”
—Padma Lakshmi
Vintage postcard, issued between 1898–1931, portraying a moonlit Palm Beach in Florida. Image courtesy of the The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints, and Photographs: Photography Collection, The New York Public Library Digital Collections.
Honoring our fathers
“HE REMAINS UNSEEN”
“My father represents the salt of the earth, blue-collar brother…the kind of Black man whose life doesn’t make the headlines for either shooting hoops or shooting bullets, for breaking out or breaking in,” the Rev. Raphael Warnock writes in this essay adapted from his new memoir.
OH CAPTAIN, MY CAPTAIN
“This boat, where my dad had taught me some of life’s biggest lessons, was my responsibility now. Preserving his boat felt like preserving him.” A love letter from writer Elizabeth Bernstein to her dad, a year after his passing.
A FEW FATHER’S DAY CLASSICS
In honor of Father’s Day, The New Yorker editor David Remnick identified a few of his favorite Personal History columns about dads, and I assure you they’re worth a read: Check out these classics by Michael Chabon, Zadie Smith, and David Sedaris.
A FATHER, CLOAKED IN SECRETS
”My father worked for the ——. His legacy is invisible. He could never talk about his life.” In 16 graphic panels, Sophia Glock reveals a poignant story about writing a memoir and worrying what her father would think.
Black family history—success despite challenges
HEIRLOOMS CARRY FAMILY HISTORY
“For many Black families, kinship bonds have endured through an enlarged definition of the term heirloom that includes everyday items that have come to serve as carriers of tradition and vessels of inheritance.” Explore this photo gallery that weaves “stories of kinship and care across generations.”
LOST AND FOUND
Her family’s story, starting with an African girl on a slave ship, was almost lost—but an old photo with a handwritten annotation on the back led the writer to an elderly aunt who had history to share. Now, “as it is in every generation, it’s up to young people today to preserve what our ancestors and elders gathered.”
MORE THAN A PAPER TRAIL
Handwritten notes in an heirloom Bible became the centerpiece of a search for one Black family’s personal history. This video traces the family’s quest for history—and how the Bible ended up at the Smithsonian.
Miscellaneous storytelling and legacy
MOMENTS OF RECOGNITION
“It’s easy to take for granted the power of sharing a story, especially a personal one.” Readers of a columnist’s personal recollection react with stories of their own lost loved ones, a nod to the power of connection.
COMMUNICATING LOVE
“Knowing that we’re all going to die, what do we want our lives to be about? How do we want to be remembered? And how do we spend whatever time we have left?” A father defines his legacy, recording his stories before he died.
TASTY READS
Last week I wrote about three food memoirs I love that aren’t written by chefs—but that are inspiring examples of using food memories to weave a personal narrative that resonates.
COMPELLING CONVERSATION
San Francisco–based video biographer April Bell talks about vulnerability, the power of story to heal and to affect change, and creating the space to listen in this podcast episode:
...and a few more links
A new neural filter from Adobe Photoshop aims to make photo restoration easier.
Tips for how to preserve memorabilia from a professional organizer
How sculptor Anne Truitt made an art of documenting her life
Lexington, Kentucky, to digitize historical records of enslaved people of the 1700s
Short takes
Life Story Links: June 14, 2022
This week's curated reading list for memory-keepers and family historians includes lots on saving and sharing a family legacy—and why it matters—plus, new memoir.
“He who digs into the past would know that barely a millionth of a second divides the past from the future..”
—Eugenio Montale
United Nations Heroes marching in the Flag Day parade during United Nations week in Oswego, New York, in June 1943. Photographed by Marjory Collins for the Office of War Information; courtesy of the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Digital Collection.
What we capture
AVOIDABLE REGRETS
Nearly half of Americans in a recent poll regret not recording or documenting conversations with loved ones who have died; and many people (44 percent) wish others would record or document conversations they have to preserve memories.
SO, LET’S START RECORDING!
In light of the above-mentioned poll, I put together some resources to make it easier for anyone to record conversations and gather stories from loved ones—so we can begin to see an upward trend in legacy preservation…and avoid regrets.
Our families, our stories
YOUR STORY, OR THEIRS?
“How do I write about social workers who harmed a child I love? How do I write about her mother? What do I owe them on the page?” Sarah Sentilles wrestles with the notion of writing about others in memoir.
MEMORIES OF THE POGROMS
“Grandma eventually came to learn that the only way I would fall asleep was by listening to the soft sound of her voice as she described in detail her early childhood in Russia.” A childhood interest in stories becomes a lifelong search for legacy—then, a book.
LEARNING TO LIVE WITH GHOSTS
The Korean tradition of jesa, or memorializing ancestors, helped Joseph Han understand that “our loved ones’ memories and histories suffuse our world and continue to shape our lives long after they have departed.”
BEDTIME STORY
“I am speaking to an audience of one, who happens to be the book’s foremost subject, my 74-year-old father, Joe, or Daddy as Northern Irish naming conventions insist he must be addressed.” Séamas O'Reilly on reading his memoir to his father.
WHAT CONTRADICTION?
On the latest episode of Schmaltzy, a podcast that explores the intersection of Jewish identity and food, Hillary Reinsberg shares stories about the distinctly German-Jewish way of doing things at her grandparents’ New York home:
The power of narrative exploration
CONFESSIONAL WRITING, REFINED
“Melissa Febos’s recent essay collection shows us not only how to capture the difficult, intimate details of our lives in writing, but why we should.” Adam Dalva on the necessity of creative confession.
THE STORY WE WRITE FOR OURSELF
“Will you take some chapters from your family’s history and courageously edit and fit them into the vision for your life’s purpose? Will you dare to write completely new chapters based on your true passions and desires?”
NARRATIVE MEDICINE IN PRACTICE
Read an excerpt from The Healing Power of Storytelling: Using Personal Narrative to Navigate Illness, Trauma, and Loss by Annie Brewster with Rachel Zimmerman, and listen to an interview with the author and Here & Now host Robin Young:
SLAVERY’S LEGACY: ORAL HISTORY PROJECT
“This kind of oral history project has never been done before. Many will, for the first time, hear the voices and memories of people whose personal experiences are still inextricably tied to racial slavery, the transatlantic slave trade, and colonialism.”
...and a few more links
New memoir of Chris Blackwell, founder of Island Records, reflects on helping bring the music of Bob Marley, U2 and Grace Jones to the world.
A one-page “Empathy Interview Guide” from Stanford d.School
On the True Stories Well Told blog: “10 Minutes to Death” by Marg Sumner
Short takes
Life Story Links: May 31, 2022
This week's roundup by personal historian Dawn Roode includes inspiring first person reads, memoir news, and pieces on the intersection of life and story.
“We listen with different ears when we can feel and believe that a story is true.”
—Editors at The Moth
Vintage postcard depicting sea bathers in Avalon, Santa Catalina, California, circa 1903. Courtesy of the Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs: Photography Collection, The New York Public Library Digital Collection.
Our Lives, Our Stories
THIS IS YOUR LIFE
“Suddenly, ordinary lives are of note,” The Guardian reports in this look at the growing personal history industry; moreover, “the way we tell stories of our lives can shape our memories.”
A STORY, DISTILLED
“Memoir writers tell what happened, what we feel about it, and what we learned. We hope our lessons are universal. We must always look beyond events to the layers below.” Lessons from revising a 100-word mini-memoir for The New York Times.
WHERE’S MOM?
Too often these days moms aren’t represented in family photos, leaving a regrettable gap. Mali Bain, a personal historian in Canada, shares a recent life story book that put one grandmother “center stage, as many mothers and grandmothers are in our own childhood memories.”
TWO STORYTELLERS, IN CONVERSATION
“Our memories are anything but fixed—and when stories are passed down to a new generation, their malleability, their meaning, and their impact change, too”: One of my favorite interviews I’ve conducted to date, with memoirist and podcast host Rachael Cerrotti.
Asking the Questions
AN AUDITORY SNIPPET OF LIFE
“As a journalist, I have spent many hours in front of other people’s grandparents recording their stories for work. Usually the offspring are there with me and express a fascination at all the previously untold and hidden stories that come tumbling out of their elders when the right questions are asked. This was the first time I had recorded my own.”
INTERVIEWER EXTRAORDINAIRE
Terry Gross, host of NPR’s Fresh Air, “has perfected a singular kind of interview; she is part conversationalist, part therapist, and part oral historian…. Above all, she is a great listener—attentive, probing, without ever feeling intrusive”:
Memoir Morsels
TASTY READS
Cookbooks are becoming more memoir-like. These hybrid books bring readers “on an emotional journey. Then they get to leave with a recipe and actually eat the food; that’s a really intense, intimate connection between reader and writer.”
NEW MICHAEL CIMINO BIOGRAPHY
“Every biography could be two books rather than one—the work itself and the nonfiction making-of detailing the journalistic adventures that yield the biographical record.” A look at a new biography of the director of The Deer Hunter and Heaven’s Gate.
First Person Reads to Inspire
A FLASH ESSAY FOR MEMORIAL DAY
“The world was sleeping, we were deploying, ocean-crossing.” With staccato pacing and gut-punching language, Laura Joyce-Hubbard writes about serving her country: “We were always leaving.”
FINDING LOVE (BY ACCIDENT)
“My very first date with Produce Man landed on the second anniversary of my father’s death. I took this as a sign that my father had sent him from the heavens and it was bashert, the Jewish term for ‘destiny.’”
Stuff, Stories, History
“ACCUMULATION OF LIFE”
“If it was just junk, it would not be so hard. But possessions have meaning; they tell stories and reinforce our memories.” A look at the “emotional challenge to dealing with the treasure and trash that your parents leave behind.”
A HOUSE’S HISTORY, REDISCOVERED
Leslie Stahl turns the 60 Minutes lens on the story of how an Air Force veteran discovered his new house was the seat of a plantation where his ancestors were enslaved. Plus, the original article that inspired her piece: “An old Virginia plantation, a new owner and a family legacy unveiled.”
SAYING SORRY WITH DUMPLINGS
Salt Lake City–based personal historian Rhonda Lauritzen was close to her brother growing up. “Then we weren’t,“ she writes. “I made mistakes, caused some deep hurts, and I never really said the words I’m sorry. So I said the words.” And cooked Grandma’s dumplings.
...and a few more links
He co-founded Covid Stories Archive to combat what he saw as biases and limitations of Congress’s proposed COVID-19 American History Project Act.
Preserve your memories with these easy scrapbooking ideas.
In his latest email newsletter Tucson–based video biographer Steve Pender looks at using Zoom for legacy audio recordings.
Legacy: In Memory of Roger Angell, 1920-2022
Short Takes
Life Story Links: May 17, 2022
For memoirists: Writing tips and inspiring first-person reads. For family historians: heirloom books themes and photo stories. This week's curated reading list.
“…writing has become for me a primary means of digesting and integrating my experiences and thereby reducing the pains of living, or if not, at least making them useful to myself and to others. There is no pain in my life that has not been given value by the alchemy of creative attention.”
—Melissa Febos
This vintage photo of boys on a tricycle in New York City was taken by Morris Huberland circa 1950. Photograph courtesy of The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints, and Photographs, New York Public Library Digital Collection.
Preserving our stories
OUT IN NOVEMBER
Bono reads an excerpt from his memoir Surrender: 40 Songs, One Story, due to be published in November. An animation from Bono’s own drawings accompanies his words from the chapter titled “Out of Control,” which tells the story of how Bono began writing U2's first single on his 18th birthday, May 10, 1978:
THE DANCE OF MOTHERHOOD
Stories don’t always have to be told with words. In this gallery, photographers capture their own experiences as mothers through pictures—self-reflective, narratively engaging, and vibrant.
WHICH STORIES TO TELL?
From life story books to a family history collection, from travel journals to heritage cookbooks, last week I offered up 10 favorite heirloom book themes to inspire those who want to preserve their stories but have no idea which stories to focus on.
PHOTOGRAPHIC MEMORIES
Head to “storytelling school” with The Moth: This lesson offers tips and exercises for telling a good story from a photograph, as well as a storytelling video to inspire.
HISTORIAN TURNS FOCUS ON HIMSELF
“An American Childhood…succeeds as memoir by carefully narrating the protagonists’ experiences as they perceived them as children and as teenagers, not filtered through subsequent informed and reasoned understanding. It succeeds as history by gently noting the faultiness of those perceptions.”
TASTY MEMORIES
“I feel like our kids know Nana still, because…they know when we make the chocolate chip cookies from her cookbook, those are Nana’s cookies.” Minneapolis–based company preserves food memories with personalized cookbooks.
Shadow play
GENEALOGY PROBLEMS
“We know that ‘race’ is a social construct. We need to acknowledge the ways in which ‘ancestry’ is, too.” The New Yorker looks at the “twisted roots” of our obsession with ancestry.
HOLDING THE PAIN
“I like to think it is the solemn duty of a writer to record stories that need to be heard, but it has occurred to me over the course of this work that listening and bearing witness to trauma is the duty of all citizens in a community. It’s what connects us.”
First-person stories that captured me
“DEAR MOM…”
“I’ve missed my mom every day, but suddenly the pain of not having her felt acute, a pain that I turned against myself for being a lousy daughter.” Twenty-four years after her mother's death, Liza Deyrmenjian writes a letter to her mom.
“THIEVES”
“I sit, I lie, and memory rises, memory merges. My marooned mother. My marooned self.” Beth Kephart sets up two parallel situations—seeking answers, sleuthing patterns, writing her way to truth
LESSONS FROM HER FATHER
“Growing up, my father took me to libraries the way other fathers took their kids to the park or the movies. It wasn’t just that he loved or appreciated them—he believed in them like some believe in churches, religions, God.”
Pieces of the past
A RECKONING WITH CLUTTER, GRIEF, AND MEMORIES
The New York Times has curated a selection of letters from readers recounting stories of dealing with a lifetime of possessions—their own or a loved one’s—and the memories and emotions attached to them.
THE URGE TO COLLECT
Enjoy this conversation about the urge to collect, the stories embedded in certain objects, and how some items can unearth stories from the person who covets them:
LOOKING BACK
On this episode of Canadian podcast Now or Never, the hosts explore how reading love letters from the 1920s is helping one woman deal with heartache; talk to three siblings digging through the contents of their childhood home; and talk about how pieces of the past can help shape your future. Listen in.
Miscellaneous
INTERESTING THEATER REVIEW
The main character of this Chicago stage production “considers memory to be a kind of photography.” The action of At the Vanishing Point hinges on an old photo discovered at a garage sale, linking characters across time and place.
...and a few more links
How a debut graphic memoir became the most banned book in the country.
Read an excerpt from the new book Anna: The Biography, about Vogue editor (and my former boss) Anna Wintour.
Nostalgic remembrance: old photo brings back memories of Grandma’s pies.
How a Holocaust survivor finally learned her own birth name.
Pandemic sparks autobiography for Delaware State professor.
Ethics considerations for conducting research for your narrative nonfiction among friends
Consider a family history book series to preserve your family heritage.
A best seller in France, Camille Kouchner’s memoir The Familia Grande is an indictment of incest that started a national reckoning.
Personal stories of hardships endured in WWII Japanese internment camps told through augmented reality exhibit in Los Angeles.
Read the newly released Spring 2022 issue of Creative Nonfiction.
Get a free guide from Rachel LaCour Niesen, founder of Save Family Photos: “3 Simple Steps to Backing Up Your Family Photos.”
Short takes
Life Story Links: May 3, 2022
This week's curated reading list is heavy on quality articles to help you tell your stories well plus inspiring first-person reads and interesting legacy takes.
“I am fooling only myself when I say that my mother exists now only in the photographs on my bulletin board or in the outline of my hand or in the armful of memories I still hold tight. She lives on beneath everything I do. Her presence influenced who I was and her absence influences who I am. Our lives are shaped as much by those who leave us as they are by those who stay. Loss is our legacy. Insight is our gift. Memory is our guide.”
—Hope Edelman
On this vintage postcard, horse-drawn carriages idle along Richmond Avenue at Bergen Point Ferry in Staten Island, New York. Image courtesy of the Irma and Paul Milstein Division of United States History, Local History and Genealogy, The New York Public Library Digital Collections.
Your stories, well told
TELL A CAPTIVATING STORY
“Leveling up our storytelling game can lead to more meaningful connections.” Here’s a step-by-step guide on how to tell a story, from an idea to delivery, from the editors of The Moth’s new book, How to Tell a Story:
DOUBLE THE STORIES
While I interview people for their stories regularly as part of my business, a big part of my mission is to inspire and empower families to conduct such interviews themselves. Last week I offered tips for interviewing a couple (your parents, say, or one set of grandparents) together.
TWO TALENTS TRADE INSIGHTS
“I’m not going to share [traumas from my life] for the sake of sharing.... I’m sharing what needs to be shared as part of this story. To do right by the story I’m creating, I’ve got to put in the right ingredients.” Marion Roach Smith interviews Mary Laura Philpott about how to write a memoir in essays. Listen in:
In their own words
“SWEET SPOT”
“I bummed rides home after practice. I bummed clothes, snacks, socks, money for the vending machine, and anything else I needed to survive.” This personal essay from Jennifer Shields transported me with time-specific details and a powerful remembrance of adolescence.
HER SERBIAN GRANDFATHER
“During the Nazi occupation, the Gestapo chose our hotel for their headquarters. I haven’t decided if it’s a sign of disrespect to that past, or a mark of triumph that we’re staying here now.” Julie Brill remembers a childhood interrupted by genocide.
THE DRIVE TO SUCCEED
“It has dawned on me lately that insecurity is one of the biggest killers of art,” Alice Walker wrote in October, 1977. Take a deep dive into her journals with this reflective and engaging piece in The New Yorker.
STILL LIFE
Award-winning writer Jhumpa Lahiri talks about a few of her favorite things, including a book she bought when she was 12 years old and “a road map to how to write” from a university professor.
Beginning, ending
NEW ITALIAN SURNAME CONVENTIONS
“Italy had until now carried “a story of male biographies,’ [one Italian official] said. “The surname is part of one’s identity and personal history, a story that we can now pass on written in the feminine.’”
WHAT IS LEGACY?
“Surveys conducted show that when faced with end-of-life planning, Boomers (and older generations) are more concerned about the loss of their values and personal history than the loss of their wealth,” personal historian Clémence Scouten writes in this pub from the Philadelphia Estate Planning Council (scroll to page 11 for the article).
MEMORY FLASHBACKS OF DYING
A patient whose brain waves were being studied by doctors died suddenly during the recordings; the resulting scientific data may be consistent with our idea that our “life flashes before us” just before death.
Miscellaneous
TESTIMONIES ON THE BLOCKCHAIN
The first Holocaust museum in the metaverse aims to use NFTs to transform survivors’ tragic memories into artistic visual presentations.
COOKING UP THE PAST
A new film premiering June 1 as part of the Tenement Museum’s annual fundraising gala will focus on food traditions, family stories, and local history; virtual attendance is donation-optional. The film, which looks at the American immigrant experience through the lens of food, was inspired by Padma Lakshmi’s visit to the Lower East Side museum, as featured on this episode of Taste the Nation:
...and a few more links
Holocaust survivors ask Israel museum to return one-of-a-kind Haggadah.
The LIFE Picture Collection is launching a non-fungible token (NFT) collection of its legendary photography.
Apple Photos adds “sensitive locations” filter to Memories functionality.
Check out this free hour-long webinar from Creative Nonfiction managing editor, Hattie Fletcher, on writing long-form.
Short Takes