Memories Matter
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Life Story Links: October 17, 2023
This week’s roundup is rich with in-depth looks at how we process memories and make stories, why personal writing matters, memoir recommendations and excerpts.
“Readers never get it all. They get some of all of it. Everything I write is true. But I don’t write about everything true. I shape, I cut, I feint and dodge; I want to get to something that is uniquely mine, and at the same time ours, too.”
—Dominique Browning
Vintage poster produced in 1939 by the Work Projects Administration; image courtesy of the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, Digital Collection. The posters were designed to publicize exhibits, community activities, theatrical productions, and health and educational programs in seventeen states and the District of Columbia between 1936 to 1943.
Way more than memories
VOICE AND IDENTITY
“As I read back my words I feel the slipperiness of time, the way a memoir is a snapshot that pins us to moments in our lives and the way that time rolls ceaselessly.” Freda Love Smith on the difficulty of narrating her own memoir.
STORYTELLING AND DEMENTIA
StoryKeep’s Jamie Yuenger “explores the profound impact of using storytelling as a therapeutic tool for people with early-stage dementia, highlighting the use of images, music, and story prompts to bring back cherished memories.”
A CHANCE TO SPEAK
“I have since realized that the real power of memoir is that through the process of writing, the writer learns to own their story, and to find authority in its telling.” Memoirist Lily Dunn on the aftermath of writing about fathers.
STORIES ABOUT HERSELF
“In all this writing and thinking and talking...I am trying to look beneath the stories that so many others have told me and perhaps uncover some truths about my childhood, always hoping to make sense of it so I can make sense of myself.”
THE STUFF THAT HOLDS MEANING
Our homes have soul—they have stories to tell!—says Erin Napier, author of the new book Heirloom Rooms. She brought her grandmother’s buttermilk biscuit bowl to GMA to illustrate how our loved ones’ items can help keep them close:
Mining our stories
WRITING, MEANING-MAKING
“The mapping of my experiences to a narrative has led me to a new emotional plane more than once.” Minda Honey reflects on the catharsis of writing about sex in memoir.
UNPACKING THE TRUTH
“I wanted to really examine the story of who I am, and how I came to be, and how this fact of my conception actually impacted the way that I've dealt with truth and shame throughout my entire life,” Kerry Washington says about her new memoir, Thicker Than Water.
‘UNFINISHED’
“It occurs to me that perhaps I linger because there is something about a liminal space and time that gives me more pleasure than actually getting through to the other side.” Ruminations from Lyn Slater on her “How To Be Old” blog.
HOW TO REMEMBER?
“For a couple of days before I began writing, I just let what memories that I had of my early life [come],” Patrick Stewart says of accessing his memories for his new memoir. “By opening up those doors, things trickled and then ended up flooding in.”
Current biography & life story offerings
‘I DON’T WANT TO BE ERASED’
“In the months, then weeks, before his death, Reed fretted about his legacy, worrying that time would erase him.” Read an excerpt from the new biography Lou Reed: The King of New York.
AN ESSENTIAL AMERICAN STORY
“As a documentarian, part of my job is to really, before I use my camera, [is to] make sure that I really understand where they come from and what is their tragedy or what is their life.” Raoul Peck’s new documentary examines one family’s attempts to hold on to property they’ve owned for over 100 years.
CELEBRATING MEMORIES
Reba McEntire calls her new book/album combo “a medley [that] is, after all, not just a cookbook, a photo album or a narrative of my life. It’s a melange of everything.”
Short takes
Life Story Links: October 3, 2023
From an audio memoir serialized as a podcast to hybrid memoirs worth reading, this week's curated roundup is rich with family history, memory-keeping and more.
“Your diaries and letters are the literature of your past, and each tells a slightly different story. I read and reread your stories as if they were fables, modern-day fairy tales that are constantly changing meaning. Every time I open to a familiar page, I read the words in a new way.”
—Rachael Cerrotti
Vintage poster produced in 1940 by the Work Projects Administration; image courtesy of the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, Digital Collection. The posters were designed to publicize exhibits, community activities, theatrical productions, and health and educational programs in seventeen states and the District of Columbia between 1936 to 1943.
A favorite theme: The power of story
HOW STORIES CAN SAVE US
“The practice of storytelling, particularly when sharing the real stories from our own living, tethers us to what matters most—our families, our friends, nature, the hearts we carry, the wondrous mystery of life itself,” Mark Yaconelli says.
CRAFTING STRONG PERSONAL ESSAYS
NYU writing professor Estelle Erasmus says “every story has a situation (the external), but the underlying story and its emotional implications are what elevate a story and take it to another level.”
ON COMPASSIONATE LISTENING
“I feel like the world is very loud and people tend to talk over one another, but if we were to just sit across from each other and listen to each other’s stories, I think there would be a lot more empathy, love, and compassion,” says Katie Cheesman, who teaches a course about how to film your loved one’s life story.
Memoir recommendations & explorations
WHEN FORMAT INFORMS MEANING
“Creativity, playfulness, and craft are evident in the memoir’s format, shape, and language,” one reviewer writes of Jennifer Lang’s “memoir-in-miniature,” Places We Left Behind.
‘AN UNPARALLELED PERSONAL TIME CAPSULE OF THE ’60S’
Doris Kearns Goodwin’s new book, An Unfinished Love Story, is a “combination of memoir, history and biography; Goodwin was inspired in part by the couple's looking through hundreds of boxes of letters, diaries and other papers.”
A PEEK BEHIND THE SCENES
“Stuart Gordon’s memoir details the cult horror director’s monster creations, his family life, and his passion for grand storytelling...[and how] his own life had enough twists, turns, and serendipitous encounters to be its own film.”
TASTY INSPIRATION
Last week I scoured my bookshelves to recommend three books (not new, but definitely noteworthy) that will inspire you to create your own hybrid cookbook combining your food stories with family recipes.
Listen up!
MISSING PIECE OF YOUR ESTATE PLAN?
Susan Turnbull, a Massachusetts–based speaker, discusses the history of ethical wills and why she was drawn to helping others create them on this episode of the Ebb and Flow podcast from UBS:
TELLING YOUR STORIES WITHOUT APOLOGY
In the below episode of the Freelance Writing Direct podcast, author Allison Hong Merrill talks about how she wrote about her real life struggles without shame, and offers advice on how to protect the privacy of those you write about. (Another episode you may like: the host chats with the editorial director of Narratively.)
‘A MUSICAL DIARY’
“‘Alive and Well Enough’ is an audio adventure of an accidental artist who one day looked up and realized he had a sense of humor, a passion for writing and stories to tell.” Jeff Daniels’s audio memoir is exclusive to Audible.
Emmy-winning actor Jeff Daniels and his son Ben Daniels join "CBS Mornings" to discuss their latest collaboration, an audio memoir titled "Alive and Well Enough."
Miscellaneous
ARTIFACTS FROM A POET’S ORDINARY LIFE
A public database of more than 8,000 of Emily Dickinson’s family objects recently went live. Read the winding story of how this treasure trove was saved; it includes things as varied as letters and poems to travel souvenirs and cooking utensils.
A STORY CONTINUING TO UNFOLD…
Amidst a trove of genealogy info that comprises more than 3,000 ancestors, Utah–based personal historian Rhonda Lauritzen discovered a fascinating story of one of them—her 9th great-grandmother who was hanged during the Salem witch trials—then went on to visit the location where her story unfolded.
Short takes
Life Story Links: September 19, 2023
This week’s curated roundup includes deep thoughts on first-person storytelling, helpful tips for family history preservation, and lots of new biography recs.
“It’s deeds, not tombstones, that are the true monuments of us as people.”
—Tom Vartabedian
Vintage poster with original artwork by B. Lassen produced by the Work Projects Administration; image courtesy of the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, Digital Collection. The posters were designed to publicize exhibits, community activities, theatrical productions, and health and educational programs in seventeen states and the District of Columbia between 1936 to 1943.
The power of our stories
CONNECT THROUGH STORY
Here’s an idea everyone—even self-declared family history haters—will like: Skip the libraries and research documents and pick up the phone, instead: How wonderfully enjoyable conversations can put you on the path to preservation.
GRANNY CALLED HERSELF AN ‘OPEN BOOK’
“Although I beseeched her for new stories, I didn’t expect them, because I’d spent hundreds of hours with Granny and knew her well. Or so I thought.” How Louisiana–based Olivia Savoie turned a love of life stories into a career.
RETURNING TO A HALLOWED SITE
“For a long time, I didn’t want to share my 9/11 experience because I was humbled by the experiences of others. But after I wrote my memoir, so many people told me that they had seen themselves in a story that was distinctively mine.”
OUR ANCESTORS’ ‘WHERE’
This free webinar from Utah–based biographer Rhonda Lauritzen, sponsored by MyHeritage, hones in on the power of place, guiding researchers through a series of steps to find the history of buildings and places.
SELF DISCOVERY THROUGH WRITING
“It’s both mystical and humiliating how your novel can know things before you yourself know them.” James Frankie Thomas on discovering his trans identity while writing fiction.
More than pictures
THE JOY OF REDISCOVERY
“My dad and mom were sort of the glue for the whole family. Now, these photos replace some of the glue that has gone away.” Some fun peeks inside how digitizing family photo archives can unlock memories.
A SECURITY EXPERT’S PERSPECTIVE
“Photos themselves are treasure troves of data.” Usually we think of this as a positive (mining our archives for family history details, for example), but there are plenty of privacy issues to consider when sharing family photos, too.
Reading & listening recommendations
REAL-LIFE WARTIME MYSTERY
Ever since reading Ruth Sepetys’s book You: The Story, I have noticed more and more novels informed by real family history. Case in point: In Nineteen Steps, Millie Bobby Brown elaborates on a story told to her by her grandmother.
LESSONS IN LOOKING
The Light Room “is not quite memoir, not quite an experimental novel, but a text that synthesizes multiple ways of looking at the same thing, [incorporating] Zambreno’s affinity for research and notebooking.” Thoughts on first-person writing, thinking of yourself as a character, and the idea of documentation.
‘WHAT IT WAS LIKE’
In this “rather extraordinary public love letter to her own family,” Ursula K. Le Guin reads a personal essay she wrote years before about the illegal abortion she had in 1950 while studying at Radcliffe. For those who gravitate to writing to preserve their stories, this video, below, is a wonderful example of hybrid storytelling. Read an insightful introduction to the piece by Le Guin’s daughters.
CHANGING OF THE GUARD
In an exclusive excerpt from the forthcoming biography Romney: A Reckoning, written by McKay Coppins based on extensive interviews, the senator Mitch Romney reveals what drove him to retire; plus, six takeaways from the book.
TEXAS AND HIM
“In Larry McMurtry: A Life, a new biography by Tracy Daugherty, the...[subject] emerges as a perpetually ambivalent figure, one who eventually became a part of the mythology that he insisted he was attempting to dismantle.” Read an excerpt here.
GENEALOGY FOR JUSTICE
The Family History Detectives podcast is an inside look at the use of genetic genealogy to reveal hidden truths, solve mysteries, and bring justice. Forensic investigative genetic genealogist Allison Peacock co-hosts with producer Adam Nurre. Binge multiple episodes here, and listen to a trailer below:
Short takes
Life Story Links: September 5, 2023
On the heels of the holiday weekend and waning days of summer, this week’s curated roundup is short but rich: Get your dose of personal history news and tips.
“Writing memoir is one way to explore how you became the person you are and the story of how you got from here to there. Believe me, it’s a good story.”
—Abigail Thomas
Vintage poster promoting literacy produced by the Work Projects Administration; image courtesy of the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, Digital Collection. The posters were designed to publicize exhibits, community activities, theatrical productions, and health and educational programs in seventeen states and the District of Columbia between 1936 to 1943.
Legacies in film
MOVING PICTURES
After watching the British TV show After Life with Ricky Gervais, Montreal–based personal historian Iris Wagner reflected on the enduring impact of videos from departed loved ones.
KEEPER OF STORIES
Texas–based legacy filmmaker Clinton Haby says he approaches his work “with a mindset that it’s sacred, and that future generations are going to want to be consuming this so that they understand where they come from.” Listen in as he talks to podcast host Willie Downs about video storytelling and creating bridges across generations.:
HISTORICAL SELECTIVITY & NARRATIVE
How “two small but potent nonfiction forebears”—documentary films that probe the life and times of those who worked on the original atomic bomb—compare to the blockbuster film by Christopher Nolan, Oppenheimer.
Memories made permanent
HOME SWEET HOME
Did you ever go on a family vacation and plan to make a travel memory book…then never get to it? Last week I shared my top three tips for things to do when you return home to set you up for memory-keeping success later—even if ‘later’ takes a while to come!
LIGHTENING THE LOAD OF FAMILY HEIRLOOMS
“What if we skip the proverbial guilt trip we create by unloading our stuff on our family, intentionally or not, and instead make a plan that will allow everyone to enjoy a trip down memory lane instead?”
THE ACCIDENTAL MEMOIR
“My mother always told us to bring back stories from wherever we went, and the Bronx—what I call the ‘no B.S.’ borough—taught me not to be full of crap, nor full of myself,” says Peter Quinn, author of the memoir Cross Bronx: A Writing Life.
Short takes
Life Story Links: August 22, 2023
In this week's curated roundup for family historians and memory-keepers: pieces on the craft of life writing, new memoir reviews, and ancestors’ artifacts.
“It’s the human imperative, this piecing together of a life. And so, word by word, we lay down our tracks.”
—Dani Shapiro
Vintage poster with original artwork by Earl Kerkam produced some time between 1941-1943 by the Work Projects Administration; image courtesy of the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, Digital Collection. The posters were designed to publicize exhibits, community activities, theatrical productions, and health and educational programs in seventeen states and the District of Columbia between 1936 to 1943.
Narrative framing
WRITING PAST PAIN
How do you share your story without hurting others? Megan February, a trauma-informed book coach, offers up eight important things to consider when writing about your life.
‘RE-STORYING INTERVENTION’
“The way that people tell their life story shapes how meaningful their lives feel.” New research finds that there are psychological benefits to reframing your life as a Hero’s Journey.
GREETINGS FROM…
Last week I shared the first in a two-part series about making memory books from family vacations—starting with the top three things to do during your travels to set you up for travelogue success later.
Things that last
ANCESTORS’ ARTIFACTS
“People don’t give native cultures much credit for their oral processes. When science goes in and verifies something we’ve been talking about for thousands of years, they’re shocked we’ve held onto that history.”
NOTE DISCOVERED IN WALL
“Her letter, a whisper from the past, became a symphony that harmonized generations, reminding us all that our words, even from the tender hands of a 14-year-old, can ripple across time to touch hearts we’ve never known.”
THINGS WE KEEP
“Sharing out loud with others keeps the memories alive, passes on the history, and enables people from all walks of life to build connections and consider their own part in our collective human story.” Meet Martie McNabb, the founder of Show & Tales story-sharing gatherings.
LOVE IN THE TIME OF ALZHEIMER’S
“I’m someone that has come here to help you remember who Augusto Góngora was,” Paulina Urrutia tells her husband in the Chilean documentery The Eternal Memory, called “loving, lyrical,” and “intimate” by reviewers. Read an interview with the film’s director here, and see a trailer below:
DIGITAL GHOSTS
“Estate lawyers have long encouraged clients to account for their digital property, but no one has come up with an emotional road map for the burden of inheriting these things.”
ANALOG TO DIGITAL
“Converting [family slides] into accessible digital media launched me on a journey back to my own childhood and the pasts of my parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents. That, in turn, is giving me a better understanding of how I became me.”
Writing…and reading…our lives
ON FIRST-PERSON WRITING
“And we all change. Stories need nothing else. All you have to add is paper.” For a droll take on the idea of writing about oneself, read this short piece by Rhik Samadder subtitled “What I learned teaching life-writing lessons.”
WRITING FROM AND INTO MEMORIES
“I would save almost everything, the Swedish death cleaners be damned, because these boxes were my inheritance, the stuff out of which my novels are made: old photographs and letters, unanswered questions, ticket stubs, report cards, the unremarkable detritus of ordinary human lives.”
‘A MEMOIR IN EIGHT ARGUMENTS’
“Although I’ve tried to own the fault entirely...I don’t think that take tells the whole story either.” In this excerpt from his new memoir, Chinese Prodigal, David Shih reflects on missing his father’s death.
‘FIRST AUTHORITATIVE BIOGRAPHY’ OF AUGUST WILSON
“If you were interviewing him, you would walk away thinking, ‘I’m the best interviewer in the world!’ Because all he did was talk and tell you these fabulous stories, with these great punchlines and lessons.”
REWRITING HER NARRATIVE
Listen in as successful ghostwriter Lara Love Hardin, author of the new memoir The Many Lives of Mama Love, talks about “her downward spiral from soccer mom to opioid addict to jailhouse shot-caller and her unlikely comeback”:
Short takes
Life Story Links: August 7, 2023
This week: interesting takes on how we interpret our memories, capturing the stories of our family heirlooms, and challenges of writing memoir and biography.
“Telling our stories to someone who is really listening offers us the experience of being seen, of being felt—as in, I feel you. I feel your heart. Can you feel mine? Can you feel the warmth of my caring?”
—Anne Lamott
Vintage poster produced in 1936 or 1937 by the Work Projects Administration; image courtesy of the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, Digital Collection. The posters were designed to publicize exhibits, community activities, theatrical productions, and health and educational programs in seventeen states and the District of Columbia between 1936 to 1943.
More stories of our stuff
GIVE VOICE TO YOUR HEIRLOOMS
Last week I wrote about how to capture and preserve the stories behind your family heirlooms, whether you’ve got just a few sentimental items or a house full of passed-down jewelry and valuable antiques.
12,795 POSSESSIONS!
“Now that there is the book, everything can catch fire and at least I will have this reminder that it existed, that it was there.” Meet the woman who photographed every single thing she owns.
Memoirists & biographers speak
ON WRITING, DISCOVERY & DREAMS
“Write to expand your understanding of, and connection to, the world we live in; write to expand your understanding of, and connection to, yourself.” A short but lovely interview with memoirist and memoir teacher Beth Kephart.
ONE BIOGRAPHER’S QUEST
On a recent episode of the podcast A Life in Biography, host Carl Rollyson (author of Biography: A User’s Guide) talks to fellow biographer Marsha Gordon about researching, writing, and publishing her new book. Listen here:
Memories and memoir
THE PAST THROUGH THE LENS OF THE PRESENT
“Memoir should not be subject to rigorous, journalistic lie-detecting. The stories may be true but rarely are they factual.” Darcey Gohring on telling the emotional truth in our life writing.
TIME AND MEMORY
“What we remember tends to be distinctive, emotionally loaded, and deemed worthy of processing and reflecting upon.... Our memories are centered on our life stories and what affected us personally the most.” What about pandemic memories?
EDITING FOR CLARITY & LONGEVITY
Three things every family historian should do during the editing process to ensure that their research and family stories are understood and appreciated by their readers—even 20 years from now.
LIFELONG GIFTS
Want to create a new family heirloom or tradition? The folks at Fatherly recommend checking out a Reddit thread of sentimental gifts to help level-up your gift-giving.
Historical riches
10 MILLION NAMES PROJECT
“All Americans, Black Americans and white Americans, have parts of the puzzle in their pockets or in their homes or in their attics or their closets. Bring those forth, whether they’re old letters or diaries or plantation ledgers.”
DUTCH HOLOCAUST AUTHOR DIES AT 103
“In many interviews [Marga Minco] gave over the years, she always said the reason that she wrote about her family was that she wanted them to be remembered for longer than they lived.”
Short takes
Life Story Links: July 11, 2023
This week’s curated roundup includes inspiring first-person stories, lots on documenting our histories (in letters, on fabric, in recorded conversations) & more.
“Words can resonate though generations for all of us. That's one reason why it’s important that we embrace them.”
—Anna Quindlen
Vintage poster produced by the Work Projects Administration; image courtesy of the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, Digital Collection. The posters were designed to publicize exhibits, community activities, theatrical productions, and health and educational programs in seventeen states and the District of Columbia between 1936 to 1943.
First person reads worth your time
‘MEMORY IS SLIPPERY’
“I am almost always the main character in my stories of my parents’ music,” Keziah Weir writes in this piece about why we become who we are, and how artistic callings shift across generations.
SLICE OF LIFE
If you’re looking for inspiration for well-crafted, compelling first person storytelling, the Modern Love column in the NYT delivers regularly. “How My Father and I Drew a New Life” is a personal essay in this vein.
MINI MONOLOGUE ON MOTHERHOOD
“The story and memory scattered down the hall, again. You lost it. Your urgent need to document paralyzes you, shames you. You want it so bad, you don’t do it.”
THE WOMAN BEHIND THE WORDS
“I was agonizing over the deep feeling that I had tried to write a very honest novel. Bracingly so…. All that honest work and I was about to be dishonest about what I looked like?”
Current books of interest
MEMOIR WITH A TWIST
Tom Brokaw’s new book, Never Give Up: A Prairie Family’s Story, “is a hybrid of memoir and history, a kind of love letter to his parents and to the hardworking people of the Plains who shared a ‘never give up’ outlook.”
TRUTH IN FICTION
Have you ever thought about using your life experiences to inform a novel rather than a memoir? Here’s a new book that can help you discover effective ways to craft fiction through personal memories.
Documenting our histories
STUNNING STITCHED MEMORIES
“Some people enjoy…[using] photography or a sketchbook to capture their travel memories. But embroidery artist Maria Zamyatina uses a needle and thread to make beautiful embroidered keepsakes of her trips.”
A FAMILY HISTORY IN LETTERS
“This is my proudest creation. An archived collection of my father’s letters to his mother during his time in the Marines. Over 100 pages of his words and his handwriting and I could not love it more.”
A STEP-BY-STEP PLAN
As a professional personal historian, I help a lot of people create tribute books to surprise loved ones. Recently I shared a primer on how people who want to go the DIY route can make their own milestone birthday tribute books.
JOURNEY THROUGH THEIR JOURNALS
“Alongside their duties as presidents, these forward-thinking leaders turned to their personal journals, recording their ideas, theories, and reflections.”
CARETAKER, VOLUNTEER ARCHIVIST
“They are our fragile, flammable legacy, and we can lay our hands on them only because of the work of people like Paul Fasana,” the librarian who was instrumental in preserving hundreds of thousands of artifacts of queer history.
IN CONVERSATION WITH A GENEALOGIST
“I have two children that we adopted at birth, and if their descendants ever put together their family trees, are they going to bypass me because I’m not a DNA relative? Or are they going to be more inclusive and do family history, not just DNA genealogy?” Listen in to this interesting conversation on LGBTQ family history:
Things we leave behind
A WAY THROUGH GRIEF
“The gift of these pictures and letters allows me to explore the memories she had but didn't think to share, and gives me the opportunity to keep learning more about her, even without her voice telling the tales.”
ROYAL DIARIES
“Tall Paul is the legacy man—the keeper of the Queen's secrets.” Could Queen Elizabeth II’s diaries ever be published?—and why her Page of the Backstairs gets to make that call.
...and a few more links
Memoir review: If This Were Fiction: A Love Story In Essays by Jill Christman
Curious about what a family history story by ChatGPT would look like?
Cool offering: The Boston Public Library loans oral history backpacks to its patrons.
A peek inside Artists in Residence: Downtown New York in the 1970s by Brett Sokol
Short takes
Life Story Links: June 20, 2023
This week's roundup for family historians and life writers includes oral history interview tips, thoughts on intergenerational trauma, recent memoir reviews.
“I believe that any experience, whatever its nature, has the inalienable right to be chronicled. There is no such thing as a lesser truth.”
—Annie Ernaux
Vintage poster produced by the Work Projects Administration in 1937 with artwork by Jack Rivolta; image courtesy of the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, Digital Collection. The posters were designed to publicize exhibits, community activities, theatrical productions, and health and educational programs in seventeen states and the District of Columbia between 1936 to 1943.
Our stories, our selves?
REMEMBERING—AND FORGETTING—THE HIJACKING
“My father told me often that he hoped to live long enough to read my memoir,” Martha Hodes explains before detailing why, in fact, she didn’t want him to read it.
PHILOSOPHIZING THE STORIES OF US
“What is the connection between the development of a sense of the self and a narrative of the self? How does the question of who you are or who I am become a question of storytelling? Is the self a story?”
INTERGENERATIONAL TRAUMA
Rachel Zimmerman investigates new research into how “the environmental wounds inflicted on one generation may be transmitted to the next” in experiences as diverse as childhood abuse, the Holocaust, and slavery.
Papers of the past
THE ART OF LETTER WRITING
“You may find your handwritten words on a piece of paper ordinary today, but that same piece of paper, three or four generations later, will become an emotional property,” Narendra Modi, prime minister of India, recently said.
JOURNALS: TO SAVE OR NOT TO SAVE?
I’ve often fallen off the journal-writing bandwagon because I get mired in thoughts about who will read my (vulnerable, extemporaneous) words when I am gone. Last week I deliberated the pros and cons of saving one’s diaries.
CELEBRATING GRANDMOTHERS
Cuban American women are sharing their abuelas’ cooking and life lessons in the digital sphere, helping these grandmothers fulfill the role of “keeper of the family legend.”
Pop annals
PHOTO STORY
“An excerpt from the new book White House by the Sea: A Century of the Kennedys at Hyannis Port offers a rare glimpse into Jackie Kennedy’s early years on Cape Cod.”
1964 TIME CAPSULE
When an archivist unearthed a stash of photos taken by Paul McCartney at the height of Beatlemania, he got to revisit memories blurred by the whirlwind of the time. Now, those photos and McCartney’s reflections are in a book:
HOW TO INTERVIEW MUSICIANS
“Designate a small number of must-ask questions—the quotes you have to get for your story—and promise yourself you’ll ask them at some point. With that established, treat your interview like a conversation.”
...and a few more links
Short takes