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Life Story Links: February 14, 2023
Insights from the diaries of two very different writers, new memoirs, and tips for writing your life stories in this week's curated roundup for memory-keepers.
“Love is listening.”
—Titus Kaphar
Vintage Valentine’s Day card
Personal stories, family history explored
WRITE THE WAY YOU TALK
“Any life story book passed down to the next generation is a gift—but it's an even better gift if it sounds like the real you.” Last week I wrote about how to write with your authentic voice and why it’s so powerful.
UNLOCKING THE PAST
“The power of understanding our own personal history, and then how that connects to a larger story of who we are, I think that gets to why [the Virginia Untold initiative] is so important.”
WHERE ARE THE WOMEN?
“Most women on the family trees of the wealthiest families are reduced to little more than vital statistics.” Here’s how to elevate female role models in your family story.
LISTEN IN
As part of a season nine initiative, the Finding Your Roots team has been holding free national conversation events online. The most recent one, below, centered on how important it is to speak with older generations, and work with younger generations, to record and preserve family history. Register for upcoming events and see archived talks here.
Notable memoirs, diaries & biographies
FROM HER ISOLATION JOURNALS
Suleika Jaouad on living in the layers of our memories, “cracking the spine of a new journal to fill with very nascent inklings for a new book,” and inspiring love.
A RETURN TO HIS ORIGINAL LANGUAGE
“A record of his abortive attempts to transfer to the page what he called ‘the tremendous world I have in my head,’ [Kafka’s diaries] contain much that is fragmentary and disjointed, stumbling and stuttering.”
MEDITATIONS ON LIVING
“There is value in reading death memoirs, if we can take them on their own terms,” Kristen Martin writes in this review of Your Hearts, Your Scars by Adina Talve-Goodman, stacking the title up against other notable memoirs by the dying.
“A SCRAPBOOK OF IMPERFECT PEOPLE LIVING IMPERFECT LIVES”
Pamela Anderson, a celebrity whose image was all about her looks, takes control of her own narrative in a memoir and documentary that are complementary, “curated artifacts of a life lived.”
A TREASURE
This interview with author Angie Cruz is a delight, so if you’d like to listen, rewind the below audio to the beginning. Otherwise, pop in at the 37:30 mark to hear co-host Kate Gibson talk briefly about ““the most meaningful book [she’s] read in the last year.”
Another episode of The Book Case that may interest you: “Anna Quindlen Wants You to Write” from last year.
...and a few more links
Viola Davis confronts two Americas in Finding Your Roots episode.
“Seung-hwan and Seon-bu,” a beautiful, short first-person piece by Elliott Pak
Appeals to save Trove, a major digital archive of Australian history
Up for auction: a collection of Princess Diana’s personal letters to two of her closest friends
In Pursuance of Meanings: a memoir masquerading as a monograph
Short takes
Life Story Links: January 31, 2023
This week's curated reading list has a host of recent articles of interest to family history lovers, memoir writers (and readers), and modern memory-keepers.
“We treasure the voices of our ancestors; we warm ourselves with the worn fragments that we have of the stories of their lives. We ourselves will be ancestors one day.”
—Pat Schneider
Vintage photo of children with a puppy in New York City circa mid-twentieth century. Photograph by Morris Huberland, courtesy of The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs: Photography Collection, The New York Public Library Digital Collections.
Memoirs of note
HER OWN PERSONAL ARCHIVE
Janet Malcolm “knew better than most that the only thing scarier than writing about oneself is letting someone else wrest control of the narrative.”
“THE HAUNTING OF PRINCE HARRY”
“The unlettered Prince [Harry] has gained in life what Hamlet achieved only in death: his own story shaped on his own terms, thanks to the intervention of a skillful Horatio,” aka ghostwriter, J. R. Moehringer.
On permanence and legacy
AMASSING DIGITAL MEMORIES
“My intentions to document my life are pure, but as a millennial mother, if I can’t get a grip on photo organization and the sheer volume of images I snap, will all my efforts be for naught?”
HISTORY, ERASED
“To see her legacy in tatters at my feet was…a reminder of how vulnerable elderly people are when it comes to relying on successive generations to treasure what they have to pass down.”
Writing our lives
WRITING FOR THEME
“When we are our stories’ protagonists, we must project our first-person experience on that larger canvas of universal experience to show...how it connects with readers’ experience or lives.”
PRODUCTIVE PROCRASTINATION?
While researching your memoir is an intensive—and necessary—endeavor, getting caught up in a never-ending web of research will only delay your writing: Ideas for continuing (and walking away from) your personal research.
VALUE OF SELF REFLECTION
“Even if no one ever reads or listens to what you preserve, you gain from thinking about what you’re doing with your life. It isn’t too late to improve the narrative.”
WHICH MEMOIR FORMAT?
Marjorie Turner Hollman, a Massachusetts–based personal historian, shares her wisdom about how defining why you are writing a memoir will help you determine your memoir’s structure.
THE CRAFT OF MEMOIR
Award-winning memoirist and writing teacher Beth Kephart joins Ronit Plank in conversation about what distinguishes a memoir in essays, the ethics of telling other people’s stories, and much more in this episode of the Let’s Talk Memoir podcast:
Holocaust remembrance
LAST CHANCE TESTIMONY INITIATIVE
The USC Shoah Foundation plans to interview several Holocaust survivors a week at its first-ever in-person ‘memory studio’ in Los Angeles.
IN 3-D
“When we talk about millions, that’s a statistic. When we talk about one person, that’s a story.” A Miami Holocaust survivor records holographic testimony for the planned Boston Holocaust Museum.
...and a few more links
StoryTerrace’s Rutger Bruining on why it’s important to document your family history
New narrative-driven video game offering hinges on memory-keeping theme
“If You Heard What I Heard”: True stories of Holocaust survivors as told by their grandchildren
Nikole Hannah-Jones on infusing her family’s personal story into The 1619 Project docuseries
Short takes
Life Story Links: January 17, 2023
This week's roundup leans heavy into memoirs—including a bunch from well-known writers and editors—but includes plenty of wisdom for everyday memory-keepers, too.
“So what if your story of a small, unremarkable life is read only by you, in some quiet corner, or by one or two people you love and trust to understand? If those are people who can learn from and value it, isn’t that a notable achievement, a valuable audience?”
—Anna Quindlen
Vintage portrait of Dr. and Mrs. Martin Luther King Jr., by Herman Miller, originally appeared in the World Telegram & Sun, 1964, courtesy of Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.
Going deep
CHANNELING SOMEONE ELSE’S VOICE
"Beyond doing the writing, a good ghostwriter also encourages subjects to go beyond what they might say on their own." A look at how ghostwriters craft books in someone else’s voice, without leaving fingerprints.
TO BE CONTINUED
There are a variety of reasons—including traumatic memories—when pausing a personal history interview is the best course of action. Last week I wrote about when it makes sense to honor the silence.
SILENCE—A BETTER OPTION?
Amidst the maelstrom of coverage of Prince Harry’s blockbuster memoir, Spare, this short op-ed by Patti Davis—daughter of Ronald Reagan and author of a book she says she wishes she hadn’t written—stands out.
This and that
PASSING ON INTANGIBLE ASSETS
An ethical will “can be a meaningful component of a comprehensive legacy plan.” Susan Turnbull, a personal legacy advisor in Massachusetts, writes about why estate planners should introduce their clients to such legacy letters.
DEAR READER…
In the latest blog for the Biographers Guild of Greater New York, Anna Brady Marcus offers up six ways to use letters in your memoir projects.
PHOTO ACCOUNTING
From how our photo taking was impacted during the pandemic to how many images the average smartphone user has on their device, these statistics, facts, and predictions around our picture-taking habits are a lot to take in.
The branches of our family trees
FAMILY LORE, NOW DOCUMENTED
On the season premiere of Finding Your Roots, actor Edward Norton learned that Pocahontas is his 12th great-grandmother. You can watch the full episode here.
STRANGER THAN FICTION
Ancestry released survey findings that half of Americans know more about families from their favorite TV shows than their own family tree—and 53% can’t name all four of their grandparents. Watch an episode of their entertaining YouTube series “2 Lies and a Leaf” featuring Modern Family’s Sarah Hyland:
Writers, editors, themselves
RECORDING IT ALL
Allen “Ginsberg’s auto poesy gives us his life not merely as a collection of facts, but as an imminent reality—there for you to judge, worship, reject, envy, study, or imitate as you will.” How the poet’s self-recording sessions informed his work.
“AN EXERCISE IN INTIMATE BIOGRAPHY”
Darryl Pinckney’s memoir of his writing teacher and friend Elizabeth Hardwick “braids together Pinckney’s memories of Hardwick and her circle of New York intellectuals with his own coming-of-age story.”
THE EDITOR WHO EDITED SALINGER
“Writing about this archive is like trying to push the whole career of Gus Lobrano into a day at the office. Have I even mentioned that he was descended from pirates in New Orleans?”
“STILL PICTURES: ON PHOTOGRAPHY AND MEMORY”
“The usually brazen journalist seems intimidated by her past; perhaps thinking it held the power to wound her.” In her new memoir, Janet Malcom “often dances right up to the line of major reckonings, but before she arrives, she shyly walks off the stage.”
KAFKA’S “TAGEBÜCHER”
A new English translation of Kafka’s diaries “illuminate a great deal about his world as a German-speaking Jewish writer in Prague...[but] they also go beyond our interest in the man and his time: On every page they reveal the writer at work.”
BETWEEN THE COVERS
Influential biographer Robert Caro and editor Robert Gottlieb have worked together for more than 50 years. Turn Every Page, a documenteray exploring their relationship, is “a great profile, filled with wit, affection and detailed stories.”
...and a few more links
Short takes
Life Story Links: January 3, 2023
A curated roundup overflowing with recent pieces about memoir writing, personal history preservation, food heritage & family stories—which will you read first?
“Love is listening.”
—Titus Kaphar
Vintage photo of kids on a cold New York City day, created by Morris Huberland between 1940-1979, courtesy of The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs: Photography Collection, The New York Public Library Digital Collections.
Meditations on memoir
TURNING PERSONAL NARRATIVE INTO ART
Might we see memoir as a “collaborative inquiry, author and reader facing the same questions from inside their inevitably messy lives”?
NEW YORK MAG PICKS BEST MEMOIRS OF 2022
“Call it hybrid memoir, memoir-plus, researched memoir—the industry hasn’t quite decided—but the blending of personal history with careful analysis of the cultural forces and institutions that inform it has exploded the genre with possibility.”
SCARS TELL A STORY
“Let it play out on the page,” Patricia Charpentier, a Florida–based life writing coach, says of the prompt she discusses in this episode of her Life Writers Vlog: Write about a scar (physical or emotional).
Preserving personal stories
PERSONAL ACCOUNTING
Lamorna Ash’s 2022 diary ran to 52,000 words. “I’ve been toying with giving up my chronic chronicling, perhaps even deleting the evidence,” she writes, “but something always stops me.”
THE WAY YOU TELL YOUR LIFE STORY MATTERS
"Even if no one reads or listens to your tale, you haven’t wasted your time. Reviewing your life…might give you the inspiration to mend some of your ways. It isn’t too late to improve the narrative.”
LOST TO HISTORY, NO MORE
“Much of [animator Bessie Mae] Kelley's story and work was lost to the pages of her own journals and left undocumented—until now.”
Stories and substance
ANIMATED AGAIN
In rare home movies (now archived at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum), Harry Roher’s camera captured what life was like for people in a small community in then Poland, now Ukraine, in 1936.
YOUR MEMORIES, THEIR CLOUD
“As I grappled with all the gigabytes, my concern morphed from losing it all to figuring out what was actually worth saving.” A critical look at storing digital photos and other artifacts of your memories in the cloud.
CARRYING THE DREAMS OF HER FAMILY MEMBERS
“By collecting the images and storing them together in that suitcase, Brooks had created a kind of narrative. It fell to her granddaughter to place it within the larger history of humanity.” Poet Robin Coste Lewis’s family album.
SACRED KEEPSAKES
“When we share a story about another, we invite them back into life.... We ‘remember’ them in this way. Transitional objects provide the opportunity to speak the loved ones’ name, to tell a bit of their story once more.”
THINGS THEY KEEP
In this special episode of Things That Matter with Martie McNabb, six guests from The Quietus House (hosts of a healing grief retreat in February) share things they hold dear that remind them of lost loved ones:
Cook up some memories
PRESERVING RECIPES
“The weakest ink, it turns out, is in fact better than the strongest memory, which is why many people who value recipe preservation view their written-down recipes as family heirlooms.”
FAMILY HISTORY THROUGH FOOD
When her parents wrote essays for their Chinese heritage cookbook, “some of the stories that we had heard were more vividly on display than what we had ever heard around the dinner table...[as] the medium required that we kind of render it in a lot more detail.”
...and a few more links
The New Yorker asked the daughter of artist George Booth to “bring him back to life for us.”
An interesting discussion about copyright and personal storytelling
From the Archives: Newspaper offers glimpse of life in San Diego 125 years ago.
Dani Shapiro in conversation about how writing fiction can reveal more about ourselves than writing memoir
Short takes
Life Story Links: December 13, 2022
We've got a wealth of thought-provoking stories about memory-keeping, family history preservation, and memoir in this final curated reading list of 2022.
“One is always at home in one’s past.”
—Vladimir Nabokov
Joyeux Noël! Vintage postcard of children with baby animals—illustration by Pauli Ebner, published by Max Munk—courtesy of The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs: Picture Collection, The New York Public Library Digital Collections.
The unexpected power of obituary writing
OVERLOOKED NO MORE
A teacher shares how he used a New York Times obituary series to show students that “history is a kind of kaleidoscope, made up of many people’s stories.”
AN EXERCISE IN LIVING
“Unlike writing an obituary for someone else, writing your own obituary gives you a chance to audit your own life. It’s helped me take note of what I want more of—and less of—in my day-to-day life.”
What to watch & what to read next
TEENAGERS TELL STORIES
I don’t know what I am more bolstered by—the power and grace of these winning 100-word personal narratives by teens, or that more than 12,000 (!!) of them wrote and submitted their mini memoir entries.
CHANGE AGENTS
From Doris Lessing’s frank memoirs of social change to less famous campaigners in decisive struggles, Sheila Rowbotham’s “top 10 dissenting life stories.”
ANIMATING ARCHIVES WITH RAW EMOTION
“In a short documentary about a troubled family relationship, Diana Cam Van Nguyen uses cuts, folds, and mixed media to bring old letters to life.” This 12-minute autobiographical, poetic film is wonderfully worth your time.
SHAPING HER HISTORY
“Understanding where we are from—who we are—is a task of nuance and nuisance,” Mary-Alice Daniel writes in this excerpt from her “memoir across three continents.”
TENDER TRIBUTE
Robert Downey Jr. turned the camera on his father, Robert Downey Sr., from 2019 until Sr.’s death in mid-2021 of complications from Parkinson’s disease. The black-and-white film is “a lively look” at the cult filmmaker. See a preview here:
Personal histories, written
END-OF-YEAR REFLECTIONS
“There's no better way to celebrate the rich, full life you've lived so far—and the big, bright future ahead—than telling your story.” Here, a few ideas from the Oprah team to get you started.
A FOCUS ON MEMORIES
I might not have time for the full-fledged memoir I want to write, but I can make time every day for this easy and significant journal exercise—and so can you: the low-pressure, high-yield memory-keeping exercise I’ve recently begun.
“WHERE I’M FROM”
“I love hearing people’s stories. But when you meet someone casually you can’t say, ‘Hi, nice to meet you. What was your childhood like?’ I liked the idea of having a container that could do this, one that we could share.” Alyson Shelton in conversation on story, connection, and an approachable writing prompt.
FOR THE FAMILY CHARTER
Charlie Carr, a family office advisor, shares his list of 10 things to leave your kids besides money—including some “items [that] are...aspirational—it’s not just who we are today, but who we want to be.”
Pictures of the past
FACES FROM THE ARCHIVES
“Because of the Holocaust, many of us have been robbed of the opportunity to see images of families that were in many cases wiped out.” Thanks to one man’s vision, the Numbers to Names organization is changing that.
THE EYES OF THE BEHOLDER
This photo exhibition that captures the ephemeral idea of home also explores the suggestion that family photos cam be akin to propaganda.
PHYSICAL HISTORY, ERASED
Her grandmother “knew that everything existed in a context, and she was determined to lay claim to her own story—of how the material things that surrounded her helped to soothe, nourish, and define her sense of family legacy, identity, and place in the world.”
“A LIFE, $12”
He bought a box of 8mm films in an antique store when he was a student, then squirreled them away. Two years later, he writes, “ I bought an old projector, loaded up that first reel, and started watching.” A journey of discovery ensued.
THINGS THAT MATTER
Matt Paxton’s tradition of telling stories prompted by Christmas ornaments helps keep his family history alive in a meaningful and fun way for his seven children. Listen in as he is a featured speaker in a recent episode of Martie McNabb’s Show & Tale podcast.
...and a few more links
Short takes
Life Story Links: November 29, 2022
This week’s curated roundup includes so many good reads about story preservation—from planning your memoir to turning memory into art—plus, objects of affection.
“Most [people] don’t even know how impressive they are until they tell their stories to others. ‘By God, I matter!’ one woman exclaimed.”
—James E. Birren and Linda Feldman
This vintage photograph of a London street scene, taken between 1930-1950, was originally part of a scrapbook in the American Theatre Wing. Photo courtesy the Billy Rose Theatre Division, The New York Public Library Digital Collections.
The stuff of memory
PRECIOUS OBJECTS
From a chipped crystal decanter that reminds the storyteller of a bold 1911 journey to a pair of shoes worn by another narrator’s family member when fleeing the Nazis—objects hold stories.
VOICES FROM THE PAST
Her father recorded soundbites of their family life on vinyl records (some 200 of them!). Now nearing 80, Ms. Kelly has inherited these circular time capsules of domestic life, with their scratchy resurrections of the past.
’TIS THE SEASON FOR NOSTALGIA
The holidays, for many, are a time of family togetherness, tradition, and memory-making. Why not let the gifts we give to our loved ones reflect those values? My round-up of unique gifts for memory-keepers and family historians.
Story preservation planning
YOUR MEMOIR: A PLAN
“Any and every item you have penciled in on your bucket list deserves not just a little hopeful dreaming every now and then, but a plan—a way to make your future dreams your present reality!” Here, a plan to get your memoir off your bucket list and into the world.
SAFEGUARDING FAMILY STORIES
“Preserving family stories is a passion of mine, but it can often become overwhelming. There just doesn’t seem to be a clear beginning, and the ending often seems far, far away.” Lisa Duncan of Heirloom Explorer has gathered resources and her favorite Instagram accounts to inspire your own memory-keeping.
BRIDGING GENERATIONS
“When my mother died in 2014, I realized how much I didn’t know about her life. I never asked the questions that haunt me now—questions about what interactions she had, what it was like to live in her time in the places she did.” Read an excerpt from Elizabeth Keating’s new book, The Essential Questions.
Turning memory into art
IN PICTURES
Why did Steve Martin decide to turn his favorite memories as an actor into a memoir illustrated by New Yorker cartoonist Harry Bliss? Because “an anecdote in cartoon form is very succinct. You don't have to set the scene….You could just do the gist of the story.”
A PERPETUAL MEMOIRIST, RECOGNIZED
Many authors write about their lives. Over nearly fifty years, Annie Ernaux, the 2022 Nobel laureate for literature, has discovered new ways to do it.
‘TRAVEL GUIDE’ TO FAMILY’S UNSPOKEN PAST
Composer Michael Gordon’s new musical work reflects on his father’s flight from Poland in 1939 and “about what [his family] took with them, and what they didn’t; about the complications of piecing origins together amid tales unheard and traumas untold.”
CONJURING A LOVED ONE THROUGH MEMORY
“As time passes and stories pile up, it can become difficult to distinguish between original memories and those borrowed from family lore or photographs…. The animation in [the short film] The Garbage Man revels in this ambiguity, bringing together the past and the present…and sitting them all down over lunch.”
PROFILE TO EMULATE
This beautiful piece about an author I love, Octavia Butler—“the girl who grew up in Pasadena, took the bus, loved her mom and grandmother, and wrote herself into the world”—also includes links to understanding her via “her most misunderstood work; her writing style; and her famous journal entry.”
...and a few more links
“12 Months to a Full Memoir or Essay Collection:” a generative workshop with Chloe Caldwell: applications due in December
Consumer Reports: Digitizing family memories ahead of the holidays
A curated collection of preservation materials for all your family history belongings, from Gaylord Archival
“Memory and grief are at the heart of this year’s best cinema”
What meaning is held by the mysterious objects on Van Gogh’s kitchen table?
Short takes
Life Story Links: November 15, 2022
On tap this week: A host of memoir-ish media recommendations, plenty about preserving legacies of those who have come before us, and tips for writing our lives.
“So let us leave words for those we love in order that we may journey with them long after we are gone, and let it not take imminent death for us to find those words and craft a more meaningful legacy.”
—Rabbi Steve Leder
Vintage promotional photo for Automat coffee, courtesy of the Manuscripts and Archives Division, The New York Public Library Digital Collections.
Memoir-ish media
FAMOUS DIRECTOR’S AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL FILM
“I started thinking, what’s the one story I haven’t told that I’d be really mad at myself if I don’t? It was always the same answer every time: the story of my formative years growing up between 7 and 18.” Steven Spielberg gets personal.
WALKING WITH GHOSTS
“It’s not even so much about my life. I put my life out there so you can think about yours.” Gabriel Byrne on the stage adaptation of his acclaimed 2020 memoir, Walking With Ghosts.
ACCUMULATED MEMORY
“Memory permits us all to have an authentic relationship to our national narrative. These discrete stories and moments, anecdotes and memories, become the building blocks of our collective experience alongside our individual identities.” Ken Burns on the intersection of individual intimacy and national narrative.
AN UNDOCUMENTED CHILDHOOD
“My biggest fear is that with my parents will die the last of my ties to my familial roots. And in response to that fear, to preempt the feelings that might emerge, I am tempted give up and let those ties fade now.” Read a memoir excerpt from Qian Julie Wang.
COMPLICATED FAMILY HISTORY
When Rachel Knight started looking into her family’s genealogy, she came across a history her grandmother had typed years before, and a shocking discovery. She and her brother share this part of their family legacy in Invented Before You Were Born, previewed here:
Lasting legacies
‘HERE AFTER” AI
Digital clones of the people we love could forever change how we grieve. Are we ready for such technology that lets us “speak” to our dead relatives?
IN LOVING MEMORY
Last week I wrote about how I’ve gotten to know more than 50 people I’ve never met this year by editing tributes in their honor—and why this is a worthy endeavor.
GLOBAL ACCESS TO TESTIMONIES
USC Shoah Foundation has completely overhauled its Visual History Archive.“The result is an incredible new resource that humanizes testimony in a way that has never before been possible.”
HER PERSONAL UNDERTAKING
New York teen author Suzette Sheft says, “My father’s death forced me to understand the importance of preserving the stories of our loved ones before it is too late. At 13, I learned that I could not let my family’s stories fade away, no matter the pain that comes with remembering.”
Writing our lives
OVERCOMING STORY-INERTIA
“It takes courage and commitment to begin and maintain the process of creating a written narrative of the past,” New Hampshire–based personal historian Peggy Rosen writes in this piece offering approaches from Guided Autobiography.
WRITING ABOUT THE HARD STUFF
“I always find that if you are hesitant to share something difficult but feel a nudge to do so, you should go for it. It’s probably because you need to share to help yourself or someone else,” writes Rachel Trotter of Evalogue Life.
THROUGH LIVES, THROUGH DEATHS
“I didn’t believe I was a writer yet, but I made a note of it,” Sorayya Khan says of learning her father had 10 years to live. “Writing renders our world and ourselves. It has saved me more than once.”
...and a few more links
How Taylor Swift and Joe Brainard led one writer on an exploration of writing in the present tense
The author of Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret recalls the confusion and joy around a female rite of passage.
A wonderful way to honor veterans’ stories in Ontario
Short takes
Life Story Links: November 1, 2022
This week's curated roundup includes Dawn’s book and film picks, meditations on memoir, and more recent articles of interest to personal and family historians.
“Remembering is a serious business. It demands attention. For a journey into the past, you have to pick your moment.”
—Charles Fernyhough
Vintage photo of a kids’ football team, October 1947, by Wallace Kirkland for LIFE magazine; © Time.
Memoir minutia
THOSE STORIES YOU’VE TUCKED AWAY
“For a long time, I used to say that I ran away from memoir by writing fiction. I don’t believe that anymore. I think if anything, my fiction writing helped lead me to my heart, to the stories I really wanted to write, to my essays and memoir.” Vanessa Mártir on writing the ghosts that haunt.
THE UNASSAILABILITY OF MEMORY
“Memory is a pinball in a machine — it messily ricochets around between image, idea, fragments of scenes, stories you’ve heard.” Mary Karr on navigating memory while writing memoir.
Life. legacies, POV
WHO GETS THE LAST WORD?
“It’s clear to those who have contributed material that the archive is about safeguarding Mr. Jobs’s legacy. It’s a goal that many of them support.” But some historians worry: Is it more tribute than archive?
OUTLIVING HIS FATHER
“At some point in my early twenties, it occurred to me that although he was no longer here, with me, my father’s life was like a map unfurling beneath mine.” Read an excerpt from Thomas Beller’s new book.
THE JOURNAL DILEMMA
“Like the journal itself, the question of what to do with them is deeply personal—and well worth contemplating.” Suleika Jaouad on making a plan for what becomes of your private writings, and who may be impacted by your choice.
ECHOES ACROSS TIME
When she was growing up, Massachusetts–based personal historian Marjorie Turner Hollman keenly felt the absence of her paternal grandfather. A trip to the Grand Canyon as an adult connected her to “Grampy” in surprising ways.
Media recommendations for personal history fans
BOOKS OF DELIGHT
There are all kinds of autobiographical writing, but oh how I love Ross Gay’s meandering yet distinct essays that, like the titles of his books promise, anticipate and deliver joy. His latest, Inciting Joy, came out October 25.
INTROSPECTIVE ACTOR & PHILANTHROPIST
“With all other people, some things were possible, but not everything. For us, the promise of everything was there from the beginning,” Paul Newman says of Joanne Woodward in this brief excerpt from his new memoir.
WITNESS
Last week I reviewed “Survivors: Faces of the Holocaust,” an exhibition showcasing 75 large-scale portraits taken by photographer Martin Schoeller to mark the 75th anniversary of the Liberation of Auschwitz in 2020.
‘FROM WHERE THEY STOOD’
A handful of prisoners in WWII camps risked their lives to take clandestine photographs and document the hell the Nazis were hiding from the world. The film From Where They Stood attempts to unearth the circumstances and the stories behind their photographs:
...and a few more links
Seeking advice: “Is it okay that my husband keeps mementos of his former love?”
Precious memories: 8 refugees share the things they brought to remind them of home.
“Dark Terrorism: an Unexpected Prisoner of War, Part 1” is a lovely example of compelling family history writing.
Research shows positive and negative memories are stored in different parts of the brain, and what this means for memory manipulation.
How explosive will Prince Harry’s memoir, due in January, be?
10 physician memoirs that offer inspiring accounts of life in medicine
Eliza Dumais cooks through the journals of Sylvia Plath, “a radical academic with a bend towards baking banana bread.”
Short takes