Memories Matter
Featured blog Posts
READ THE LATEST POSTS
Life Story Links: March 16, 2021
Helpful reads for those who value memory-keeping, including conversations about legacy videos, memoir writing, and interviewing loved ones, plus life story ideas.
“Memoir begins not with event but with the intuition of meaning—with the mysterious fact that life can sometimes step free from the chaos and become story.”
—Sven Birkerts
Today would have been my mom’s 74th birthday, so in her honor I am sharing a vintage photo from her teen years—in curlers, on hammock, jokingly giving a drag of her ever-present cigarette to…a youngster. (Yup, I wish I could ask her who all the players in this picture are.)
Helpful Tips for Anyone Who Values Memory-Keeping
HOW TO INTERVIEW SOMEONE IN HOSPICE CARE
When someone I never met wrote to me asking for advice on interviewing their dying mother, I spent some time researching before I answered her. Then I realized that other people might be looking for similar help.
“WHEN DISASTER STRIKES”
“The more we can do now to prepare for an eventual disaster the better off we’ll be—both in terms of safety as well as in protecting our irreplaceable family treasures,” archivist Rachael Cristine Woody writes. This helpful post includes handy checklists for preparing your family treasures for the worst.
CAPTURING FAMILY LEGACY IN VIDEO
In this engaging conversation with video biographer Steve Pender of Family Legacy Video in Tucson, Arizona, he explores topics including putting your family’s story in context of broader world history, and what to do it you think your own stories aren’t interesting enough to save. Listen in below, and click through to discover past episodes.
Our Stories, Our Selves
“A MEMORY PLAY”
“It’s through the film’s specificities that Minari depicts a family like any and no other. And it’s through preserving memories of love, heartbreak and sacrifice…that Chung’s excavation of his own childhood hits on achingly resonant truths about the fluid, formative essence of family.”
ON MEMOIR & FLUID STORYTELLING
“We’re all yearning, thwarted, loving, losing, grieving, laughing, crying, hoping. Our selves matter when we write stories that illuminate the human condition.” Beth Kephart in conversation about her new book, Wife | Daughter | Self: A Memoir in Essays, and on the process and value of memoir.
AN OPPORTUNITY TO SHARE
When Mira Rosenblatt, 97, went for her second shot of the Covid-19 vaccine, a nurse asked her if she was nervous. “I’ve been through way worse,” she said, proceeding to share her life story—including surviving the Holocaust and going on to have eight grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.
“A YEAR LIKE A LIFETIME”
Whitney Myers, an Austin–based video historian, reflects on some of the universal themes she sees “over and over in the interviews I’ve done and year after year throughout the stories of our lives.”
LETTERS FROM—AND TO—THE TROOPS
Legendary comedian Bob Hope, who Congress officially named an “honorary veteran,” uplifted thousands of GIs—not only through his USO tours, but through letters he answered over the years. That correspondence is now collected in a book, Dear Bob: Bob Hope's Wartime Correspondence with the G.I.s of World War II.
...and a Few More Links
Toronto–based historian Dustin Galer, founder of MyHistorian, is featured on CBC.
Archivist hopes to reunite personal photos with tornado victims a year after storms.
How people are writing the history of the pandemic through everyday journals
A writer on her love affair with libraries (including the joy of discovery)
Teaching resources from Facing History and Ourselves for helping students reflect on the past year
Fun read: The untold history of the Barbizon Hotel for Women
Digital archivist Zoe Morrison, based in Florida, shares a friend’s old photo collection—and how clues to stories emerge from the pictures themselves.
The Home Edit and Ancestry share tips for storing your sacred keepsakes.
Short Takes
Meaningful conversation when your loved one is on hospice—here’s help
How to have meaningful conversation with your loved one on hospice, including the best life review questions & 4 things we all should say when someone is dying.
“My mom just entered hospice. I would like to create a book—do you have questions I could use? I would like to do this as I am sitting with her.”
This request came to me from someone who filled out a basic form on my website. My heart cracked open as I wondered what I could offer her.
At once I could see myself sitting by my own grandmother’s hospice bedside; I could feel that sense of helplessness and urgency to do something. I could imagine this individual typing that inquiry to me, a stranger, with a blind faith that it would be answered.
Well, I did answer her. It took me a while (and some research) to craft a response that I thought would truly be helpful at this time, as none of the resources I had thus offered online met the need. And then I realized—if she was looking for questions to ask a hospice patient, others were too.
If your family member is on hospice or has been diagnosed with a terminal illness, consider some of the questions and insights below to help you have meaningful end-of-life conversations with them.
Honor the urgency—and sacred nature—of talking with your loved one on hospice
It’s no surprise that when we are hit with the notion that our loved one is going to die, we feel an urgency—an urgency to connect, to hear their stories, to help them find meaning in their life and peace with their imminent passing.
Most of us take for granted that our family members will be around tomorrow. Tomorrow we can ask questions. Tomorrow we can hear their stories.
But when tomorrow is taken away, then what? Is it irrational to try to squeeze a lifetime’s worth of questions into what could be a finite few days or hours?
I have long offered a list of “essential” questions to use in interviews with parents or grandparents—but this is a long list, designed for those who have the luxury of time to conduct interviews.
When a loved one is on hospice, time is of the essence. So I recommend you get to the heart of the matter quickly, and focus on questions that lead them on a journey of meaningful reflection. (Remember, this is more about them than it is about you.)
Help the dying find a “sense of completion”
Research shows that people who are dying feel an urgency to “find a sense of completion” and to feel that they have contributed to others during their lifetime.
Palliative care expert Ira Byock has long written about how we can understand dying as a time of learning, repair, and completion of our lives—and how everyone deserves to “die well.”
One of his fundamental recommendations is that family members help their dying loved ones find that sense of completion by saying four things:
“Please forgive me. I forgive you. Thank you. I love you.”
It’s not a matter of simply reciting the words, of course. Each person must find personal meanings within the words, and find a way to express that meaning to their loved one.
“Thank you for being a mother who always listened to me, Mom.”
“Please forgive me, Daddy, for not helping you to cope better during your divorce”
“Mama, I forgive you for the things you did that caused me pain.”
Conversation may or may not ensue, but the offering of the words, the emotions, the gratitude, is a true gift. It helps both the dying person and their family member feel like important things have not been left unsaid.
Ask questions that help create “a biography of joy”
Like the woman who wrote to me wanting to use the time at her mother’s bedside to ask biographical questions, many people desire to learn more about their loved one as they near death. Perhaps there are things they always wanted to know, but time never seemed of the essence—until now.
There are myriad lists of family history questions out there, but these are designed for interviews where there is less sense of urgency.
When interviewing a hospice patient about their life, a more condensed life review is in order. Ask questions that speak about life transitions (graduation, career change, marriage, becoming a parent, moving homes, etc.) and that lead the subject down a path of happy reminiscence.
Questions that probe big changes in one's life usually prove to have very poignant answers.
Things such as:
Tell me about all you have loved.
What is the best decision you ever made?
What have you loved most in this life?
What has surprised you about people? About yourself?
How would you like to be remembered?
What hopes do you have for your family?
And then, there are times when someone on hospice may not want (or be able) to delve so deeply.
Consider bringing them a smile through lighthearted questions.
Questions such as:
Sing me your favorite song.
Do you remember your first kiss?
What was your favorite toy as a young child?
Did you ever play a prank on someone?
And remember: While you certainly have a deep interest in learning the answers to these life review questions,
“Stories also can be a gift that the ill person gives to others. People living with debilitating effects of illness may struggle with feelings of unworthiness and a sense of being a burden to others. The recording of family stories involving the marriage of matriarch and patriarch, seminal events, and the history of the family during war or natural disasters is a tangible way that people can contribute to their children, grandchildren, and the generations to come.” **
This life review is foremost an opportunity for the dying person to reflect and find meaning in their life. What a gift that is.
Navigate end-of-life conversations with grace
It is a most generous gift for you to go beyond providing comfort and personal care to inviting your family member to reflect on their life. By asking them questions and giving them space to share, you are creating an opportunity for integration—for a sense of self-actualization to happen at the end of their life.
“At the end of the day, or at the end of a life, we want to know that our lives counted for something, that we mattered, that our lives have had meaning,” palliative care nurse Charlene Thurston says. “What matters most to people is not what they’ve accumulated, but whom they’ve touched; whom they’ve loved and been loved by.”
By asking your loved one certain biographical questions, you are helping them take stock of their life—to articulate how it has had meaning, and to name their most special relationships.
Listen generously. Make eye contact. Use old photos or mementos as memory prompts.
And I urge you to hit "record" on your phone's recording app or on a mini digital recorder. We feel so confident we will remember the things our loved ones say, but I speak from experience when I say this is not always the case, especially when we are in a caregiving role and emotions are so close to the surface.
I hope these things are helpful to you in your effort to capture your loved one’s stories. Cherish the time you have together. Being a caregiver may not be easy, but it is indeed a gift.
** This quote and the idea of creating a “biography of joy” derive from a paper entitled “Caring When Cure Is No Longer Possible” by Ira R. Byock, M.D. and Yvonne J. Corbeil.
Life Story Links: March 2, 2021
From notable memoir excerpts to thoughtful pieces on language, family history, and self-identity, this curated list is full of great new reads for memory-keepers.
“In the silence of listening, you can know yourself in everyone, the unseen singing softly to itself and to you.”
—Rachel Naomi Remen
Vintage photograph of nurse feeding a baby, taken between 1935-1945, courtesy of the Manuscripts and Archives Division, The New York Public Library Digital Collections.
Family Stories Matter—a Lot
FAMILY, HERITAGE, KNOWLEDGE
The Deseret News recently spoke with three of the keynote speakers at this year’s RootsTech Connect about their respective family histories and why knowing about one’s heritage matters.
STRESS-FREE WRITING
“I didn’t once notice an ungrammatical sentence or a misplaced comma in that collection of memories. That’s not what matters. What matters is authenticity, voice, and perspective. What matters is that our stories get told, in all of their imperfect glory.” Some really great tips from author Angie Lucas about preserving your stories.
Engaging History
HISTORY AS WE LIVE IT
The Pandemic Journaling Project now has more than 6,500 entries from more than 750 people, containing “perhaps one of the most complete records of North Americans’ internal adjustments over months of pandemic, protest, and political division.”
OUT OF THE BOXES…
Robert Blomfield was a medical student in the sixties when his passion for photography led him to document—in evocative pictures—post-war Edinburgh. Recently his family began to catalogue and digitize thousands of images in the archive and is sharing the legacy with a wider audience.
First Person Reads
WHAT IT MEANS TO BE A BLACK MOTHER IN WHITE AMERICA
“It has been critically important to me that Chris, as a white man, understands how dearly I hold onto my own Blackness, but equally important that he understand how necessary it is that our son be encouraged to hold onto his Blackness, too.” Rebecca Carroll’s memoir powerfully weaves the writer’s commentary with her life experience.
HER WRITING, THEN
“Technically, I’d written a memoir, but what kind of memoir was it? I wrote a book about disability in which the word ‘disability’ appears only once. And that, I’ve since realized, was a mistake.” Sandra Beasley on claiming her identity as a disabled writer.
INHERITED LANGUAGE & FAMILY HISTORIES
“My mother tongue is a linguistic shipwreck; and it is from there that I write the story of my grandparents,” Claudio Lomnitz writes in this excerpt from his memoir, Nuestra América: My Family in the Vertigo of Translation.
Food for Thought
“THE AUTHOR OF NOW”
Are memoirs “a choir made up of soloists only, voices competing for attention, all traveling similar routes, drowning one another out,” as Olga Tokarczuk has put forth? An exploration of the writer’s views on interconnectedness and fiction as a kind of truth.
IN OUR GENES
Using excerpts from the recent documentary The Gene: An Intimate History and season 7 of the series Finding Your Roots, two virtual discussions in March will seek to demystify the science behind genetics and ancestry.
To Health!
THE MEDICINAL POWER OF STORIES
Last week I wrote about how and why storytelling is good not only for the soul, but for our health, too—along with three ways to reap the health benefits of stories in our own lives.
THERAPEUTIC BENEFITS OF LIFE WRITING
And Michael Befus aggregated a LOT of research into one commanding post demonstrating how writing your life story can improve mental health in old age, including lessening symptoms of depression and improving cognitive function.
BEYOND THANK YOU
“It takes a little bravery, but writing sincerely and from the heart turns a polite note into a meaningful memento.” Writing a gratitude letter has proven mental health benefits—not to mention, it simply makes you feel darn good.
...and a Few More Links
a compendium of the most helpful and comprehensive memory-keeping posts on the site
four tips for capturing the spirit of those who have passed in a book
Canon’s new photo culling app
Spring course from Elon University: “Family Storytelling as a Superpower: Helping You Leave a Meaningful Legacy”
Short Takes
Most helpful blog posts for memory keepers, memoirists, and family historians
The best posts to help you with memory-keeping, including family history questions, memoir writing tips, family photo preservation ideas & heirloom book themes.
After years of blogging and helping people create books about their lives, I thought it would be a good idea to organize all the most helpful posts on the Modern Heirloom Books site in a way that makes it easier for you to find what you’re looking for—hurray!
What follows are some of the most comprehensive and useful posts to help you in all aspects of your memory-keeping—from capturing life stories through oral history interviews to writing your own memoir, from family photo preservation to finding the stories behind those precious photos, it’s all here!
how to use this catalog
Bookmark this page in your browser so you can come back to it easily.
Click on any of the topics below to go straight to that section.
Click on any of the story names to go straight to that post—they’re all hyperlinked.
topics to explore
Creating a family photo archive
If you are interested in WRITING about your life:
Memoir Writing Prompts
The foolproof life writing prompt guaranteed to get your pen moving.
This multi-part writing prompt is generative—it will yield even more ideas for future writing.
Learn about our Write Your Life memory and writing prompt subscriptions
Writing prompts for life story vignettes: 300 words in 30 minutes
Writing prompts for life story vignettes: the self-interview
Thinking about the meaning of the word ‘family’ yields two foundational writing prompts
Unexpected places to discover great life story questions to use as writing prompts
Memoir Writing Tips
How to break down a life story book project into three simple steps
How to create a life timeline for your memoir writing project
How to set a realistic deadline for your life writing project
Differences between biography and memoir—and why you should write your life stories (plural)
Ever consider using a list format to explore your life stories?
Feeling stuck with your life writing? Try this 3-step reset.
How to get your memoir off your bucket list and onto the page.
Three ways to research your memoir—and when to know your research is enough to begin
“The messy middle”: Pushing through the toughest part of memoir writing
Not sure if NOW is the right time to write your memoir? Ask yourself these two questions.
If you are interested in learning more about capturing your FAMILY STORIES:
Family History Interview Questions
Tips for Preserving Your Family Stories
Best practices for conducting family history interviews at home.
How to get a parent who doesn’t want to talk about their memories to open up
How to turn an oral history interview into a compelling story
Eight things you can do to be a good steward of your own family history
Differences between scrapbooking and creating personal history books
How to interview a loved one who is on hospice: Ask questions that help create “a biography of joy”
How to be a good storyteller if you are the subject of a family history interview
Tips for interviewing a pair of your grandparents together at the same time.
When to break a family history interview into multiple sessions
How to edit your family history so it will make sense 20 years from now
To read or not to read? How to handle a deceased family member’s personal letters
Go beyond the paper trail: 3 fun ways to follow clues about your family’s past
How to avoid scope creep and make sure you FINISH your family history project
If you are interested in creating a FAMILY PHOTO ARCHIVE:
Organizing & Saving Your Family Photo Collection
How to organize your family archive as a resource for sparking memories
Follow these basic photo organizing principles so you leave a manageable photo legacy for your kids.
What to do to ensure your kids don’t throw out your family photos
Make sure you’ve digitized the family photos in frames around your home.
Why sometimes a “bad” photo is the perfect picture—and worth saving
The one thing not to do if you want your photos to print beautifully in your memory book
Telling the Stories Behind Your Photos
If you are interested in finding ways to HONOR A DECEASED LOVED ONE:
If you are interested in finding IDEAS FOR HEIRLOOM BOOKS:
Your 10-step plan for making an heirloom-worthy family cookbook
10 heirloom book themes to narrow your life story book focus.
Adoptive parents: Preserve your journey to adoption in an heirloom book.
Six heirloom book ideas, from travel journals to family recipe books with a twist
“Dear Daughter, on Your Wedding Day,” the most meaningful gift for the bride-to-be from her parents
How to create a vacation photo book or family travel journal
Why I think classic (not trendy!) design is best for your personal history book
Do you need to be convinced that YOUR STORIES ARE WORTH SAVING?
How your stories’ enduring value can offer life lessons to your grandkids and beyond
How to leave a legacy that is a blessing to your descendants
Hear one client’s experience: “It was more for me than anyone else”
Wanting to know more about our parents’ lives is not a trend.
Your grown kids might not care about your stories now, but they will someday.
Genealogists share their reasons for valuing our own family stories.
“I wish I had asked my mom that” and other heartbreaking regrets you can avoid
Let Josh convince you that now is the time to tell your stories.
You’ve got reasons why you aren’t telling your story; I’ve got reasons why you should.
This post will be updated regularly as new relevant content is added. It was most recently updated on August 29, 2025.
Storytelling isn’t just good for the soul—it’s good for your health, too.
Did you know that listening to and sharing stories can help us live longer, happier lives? Discover three impactful ways to bring storytelling into your life.
Here are three ways to incorporate storytelling into your life to reap proven health benefits:
1 - Listen to some entertaining stories.
Can listening to a podcast really be good for your health? If it’s sharing a good story—and by good I mean that it’s relatable, engaging, and yearns toward the universal—then, heck yeah, it can.
Doctors explain it this way (well, I’ve simplified it greatly!):
We hear, “Once upon a time…” and, first, our heart rate increases as our attention is piqued.
Then, as the story begins to unfold, a chemical change happens—our brains release oxytocin, a hormone that causes us to really care about the people involved. Oxytocin helps us to feel bonded, and enhances our feelings of empathy.
According to studies, that release can also lower blood pressure, ease gastrointestinal distress, and even promote wound healing and suppress inflammation.
So the physical effect of listening to a good story goes well beyond leaning in to hear better!
And there’s more: Stories positively impact our mental health.
Researchers have found that seniors suffering from dementia who participate in community-based story sharing programs, sometimes referred to as reminiscence therapy, have improved cognitive function. You know what else? They report being happier.
An interesting finding? It doesn’t matter if the story we hear is happy, sad, or dramatic, as long as we’re engaged!
Two of my favorite places to get stories in bite-size pieces:
StoryCorps home page, for their animated interview clips, which always tug at my heartstrings
2 - Write about a challenging time in your life to help you make some sense of it.
When bad things happen, we need to find ways to fit them into the stories we have told ourselves about our lives. Journaling is one powerful way to do this.
“Storytelling allows us to take life events that are exceptional, unforeseen, or otherwise out of the ordinary and domesticate them into meaningful, manageable chapters in the ongoing arc of our lives. This act of integration,” Bruce Feiler writes in Life Is in the Transitions, “is storytelling’s greatest gift.”
Have you recently divorced your partner? Lost your job? Are you feeling undermined at work or lost at home? Have you suffered trauma in your past? Or are you just feeling a little “off”?
No matter how big or small your challenge, writing about it with intent—to reflect and find meaning—will undoubtedly be helpful. It’s why so many psychologists recommend the practice to patients working through a difficult experience.
What does the data say? Journaling helps improve well-being after traumatic and stressful events, according to a study from Cambridge University. A host of other research enumerates the benefits of expressive writing, as well, from coping more effectively with stress to improved memory function, from helping us make better decisions to accurately naming our feelings.
What do people say? Simply put, it makes us feel better. Journaling can be cathartic, sense-making, calming. By creating a coherent narrative out of something that was experienced mostly through emotions before—anger, sadness, outrage—we can make sense out of the chaos of our lives.
A few tips to get started writing about painful experiences:
Choose one challenging life event or theme to write about more than once. On day one, free-write—jot down impressions and emotions, and allow your pain to flow through your pen. On day two (a week or so later), try to construct a story about your experience; and during a subsequent writing session, probe for meaning. You might want to try writing a letter to your younger self, or imagining what a compassionate friend might say in response to your narrative. If these writing suggestions do not resonate, check out the writing prompts in this article specifically designed to help individuals cope with symptoms of PTSD.
Be gentle with yourself. While writing may bring clarity, it will also drum up some difficult feelings. Consider reaching out to a supportive friend or therapist if the process becomes overwhelming.
Find gratitude. Even in the most challenging circumstances we may find “silver linings.” Write about something you have learned or gained through your journal practice. Try to be conscious of any healing that is happening along the way.
3 - Ask someone you love to tell you stories from their life.
It’s so easy to get into a rut of routine conversation with our loved ones. Next time, skip the quick text asking, “How was your day,” and instead invite more meaningful conversation.
An eight-decade Harvard study found that those with deeper social connections live longer. “The surprising finding is that our relationships and how happy we are in our relationships has a powerful influence on our health,” said Robert Waldinger, director of the study.
According to an article in The Harvard Gazette, “Several studies found that people’s level of satisfaction with their relationships at age 50 was a better predictor of physical health than their cholesterol levels were.”
Relationships, it would seem, are a key ingredient to our well-being, especially as we age.
And intergenerational connection—that between, say a grandparent and a grandchild—may have even greater health benefits.
As Marc Freedman, author of How to Live Forever: The Enduring Power of Connecting the Generations, writes, “an accumulating body of research on purpose, generativity, relationships, and face-to-face contact suggests that engagement with others that flows down the generational chain may well make you healthier, happier, and possibly longer-lived.”
A few ideas for having deeper conversations with your family elders:
Pick one or two questions from a list of family history interview questions to spark some story sharing. And be a good listener: Ask follow-up questions, make eye contact (if you are physically present together or on video chat), and provide a safe space for reflection.
Grab an old family photo to use as a memory prompt and ask your loved one to tell you about a time from their childhood (or yours!).
Go deep: Ask them thought-provoking questions that are usually relegated to philosophy books these days. How do you want to be remembered? What do you wish you knew when you were 20 years old? What has been the great joy of your life?
My biggest wish for you? That you will do one or more of these suggestions not just once, but that you will make them a part of the fabric of your—even healthier!—life.
Life Story Links: February 16, 2021
When memories are left unrecorded, legacies fade; but when stories are preserved, the rewards are myriad. The value of personal history, memoir, and more.
“Memory nourishes the heart, and grief abates.”
—Marcel Proust
Vintage Valentine’s Day postcard with early 20th-century illustration
In Pictures
SCENES FROM A MARRIAGE
The experience of abundant togetherness during this pandemic for Mandy Patinkin and his wife, Kathryn Grody, “is a matter of public record, because scenes from their marriage—in all its talky, squabbly, emotional, affectionate glory—are all over social media, courtesy of their son Gideon, 34, who started recording them for fun.” What a delight!
SCENES FROM A BYGONE ERA
When boxes of photos of everyday life in the Shetland Islands were salvaged from the recycling heap and shared online, residents’ memories went into high gear. “Overnight, dozens of people were leaving messages and helping to identify the people featured, chiming in with notes on family homes and sharing memories of places they spent time as children.”
Lives Recorded, Lives Unrecorded
AND NOW, BLANK PAGES
“I often wish I could ask my father who he was at 23. I wish I could ask what his bad habits were, or how he treated his mother, or what he did on Saturdays. But his ability to recall his past has disappeared…” A daughter unearths her father’s journals from a time before Alzheimer’s stole his memories.
A GIFT FOR ALL
“At the time I thought I was doing this for my kids, and my grandkids… It would be ancient history on a personal, family level,” Randy McDaniel says of recording his father’s stories while he was in a nursing home. When his dad died years later, Randy realized, “Nope. I recorded it for myself.”
BROOKLYN SERVICEPEOPLE
World War II veterans buried at Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn, NY, will soon be honored by a team of dedicated archivists to offer “a better story than what’s on the gravestone about who these people were and what they did.”
“MY FAMILY AND THE MOB”
“As the hurts are revealed, they offer unexpected insights that traverse generations. The life of the grandfather explains the life of the father, which explains the life of the son.” He knew his grandfather was a mob boss., but was that the whole story? A review of Russell Shorto’s Smalltime.
Pen to Paper
A CONUNDRUM, INDEED
“Not the first modern trans memoir, but perhaps the first with literary ambitions, Conundrum helped establish one way of thinking about what it means to be trans.” A thought-provoking piece about how one person’s story can become less relatable, even “obsolescent,” over time.
A FOOLPROOF WRITING PROMPT
Last week I wrote about the two-word writing prompt guaranteed to keep even the most blocked writer’s memories—and pen—flowing, which was introduced to me by one of my favorite memoirists.
Kinship and Connection
FIRESIDE CHAT
This conversation between Dave Isay, founder and president of StoryCorps, and Dr. Ira Byock, founder of Providence’s Institute for Human Caring, is now seven months old, but its message—how stories build human connections—is as relevant as ever.
UNLOCKING MEMORIES & EMOTIONS
“While we could have looked at photos together before the pandemic, we rarely did. Now, using ‘share screen,’ we gaze at the snapshots Dad took while he was working as a fishing guide on Yellowstone Lake, and as a relief doctor for the Havasupai people who live near the Grand Canyon. The photos release memories.” How Zoom has enabled one family to become closer during the pandemic.
LONG-DISTANCE EXCHANGE
“I get to have a 45-minute to an hour conversation with one of my oldest, closest friends every single week. Not just, ‘How’s life?’ or, ‘How’s your job?’ but real, actual subjects that mean something. Not many people can say that.” Behind the scenes at “The Bittersweet Life” podcast.
AN ARTFUL MEMORIAL
A quilt stands as a monument to a mother who looms large in the memory of her family: “It’s a way to preserve history and...to keep our mom’s memory alive and remember her after all these years.”
...and a Few More Links
“Secrets & Memory: A Workshop for Writers with Dani Shapiro & Albert Flynn DeSilver” on March 6
Smithsonian presents the Mother Tongue Film Festival, “The Healing Power of Storytelling”
Mike Nichols, intuitive storyteller
Read an excerpt from Gabriel Byrne’s new memoir, Walking with Ghosts.
Considering creating a commonplace book?
For one woman, prayer cards provide treasured connections.
Memory and technology: on how we retrieve images from the past
Short Takes
The little book that every aspiring memoirist should read
Introducing the two-word writing prompt guaranteed to keep your memories and your pen flowing, plus the book by Joe Brainard that inspired it: “I remember...”.
The little book that could: I Remember by Joe Brainard is a cult classic and a favorite of aspiring memoirists and memory keepers.
Buy this book now: I Remember by Joe Brainard.
(I don’t suggest borrowing it from the library, because you will want to pull it out next week, in five years, when you’re staring at a blank computer screen or journal page; it’s a tiny book, so it won’t take up too much space on your bookshelf, after all.)
This book is a delight to read. And this book holds the key to writer’s block.
Brainard’s memories, recounted in a stream-of-consciousness fashion, are short and pointed, often mere phrases or single sentences, occasionally a brief paragraph, each beginning “I remember...”:
“I remember the only time I ever saw my mother cry. I was eating apricot pie.
“I remember how much I cried seeing South Pacific (the movie) three times.
“I remember how good a glass of water can taste after a dish of ice cream.
“I remember when I got a five-year pin for not missing a single morning of Sunday School for five years. (Methodist.)”
As Ron Padgett writes in the book’s afterword, “Few people can read this book and not feel like grabbing a pencil to start writing their own parallel versions.” Indeed. “It is one of the few literary forms that even non-literary people can use.”
The two-word prompt that never fails
Like many before me, I was first introduced to Joe Brainard’s book in a weekend writing workshop with memoirist Dani Shapiro. She read some snippets out loud and I was immediately enlivened. Our assignment: to write nonstop for 10 minutes, finishing the sentence “I remember…” over and over with no concern for chronology or connectedness.
As she describes, “When I give that exercise at retreats, I look out from where I’m sitting at a sea of people, and not one of them hesitates. Those are extremely evocative words.”
“I remember.”
Those are the words Shapiro calls evocative.
And they are the words that form her (and my) favorite writing prompt: “I remember…” is a steadfast prompt, an old friend that can be pulled out and used often, always to new effect.
As Padgett writes, “Even the smallest [memory] can exert a mysterious tug, and when it is clearly recalled it can release a flood of other memories.”
Your turn: Start writing using the prompt “I remember…”
“Memory is just this storage locker of incredibly rich material and we often can’t get at it when we’re trying to remember something or thinking in some chronological way or straining and reaching,” Shapiro said on an episode of her now defunct Facebook Series, “Office Hours.”
“Where we can really get to it is on the page, following the line of words, and allowing associations to pile one on top of the other.”
So, grab a pen and start writing.
don’t discriminate against memories that seem meaningless or small
don’t worry about making connections between one memory and another
don’t stop until your 10 minutes are up.
Some remembrances will be short and specific. Here are two of mine:
“I remember patent leather black shoes with one scuff on the toe.”
“I remember drinking Diet Coke nonstop when I worked at Vogue. My production assistants swore I needed an IV drip of caffeine. One of them berated me for buying cups of ice from the bodega for a dollar.”
Other remembrances will be more profound, perhaps longer, such as this one from Brainard:
“I remember having a friend overnight, and lots of giggling after the lights are out. And seemingly long silences followed by ’Are you asleep yet?’ and, sometimes, some pretty serious discussions about God and Life.”
Let your mind wander—no restrictions—and your pen will follow. You’ll be surprised by what bubbles up.
“People almost invariably find memories that they didn’t know that they had,” Shapiro said in an interview with Marie Forleo about this exercise.
“We don’t tell ourselves stories in our heads. We have these disparate memories that don’t connect. And when we allow them to be associative and to bounce one off the next, it creates all sorts of interesting material.”
Who should give this writing prompt a try?
Personally, I think the simple phrase “I remember…” as a springboard for writing has universal appeal. It’s fun, it’s alluring, and it’s easy.
It may be especially beneficial for certain people, though.
This writing exercise is good for:
helping you open the floodgates of memory when you feel stuck
warming up at the beginning of a writing session—putting pen to paper and having a relatively easy task (simply finishing the sentence “I remember…”)
brainstorming memories: Without the pressure of remembering something specific, your list will inevitably be diverse and surprising—providing fodder for a future memoir or personal essay.
So if you’d like to discover the power of short reminiscence, and emulate it to create your own list of prompts for future development, well, I Remember is the book for you..
Note: This is an unsolicited review of a book I purchased at full price. I did not receive any compensation or free products in exchange, and any endorsements within this post are my own.
Affiliate disclosure: As an Amazon Associate, we may earn commissions from qualifying purchases from Amazon.com.
P.S. I’d love to hear some of your reflections. What are a few of your favorite things you wrote using the writing prompt “I remember…”? Share in the comments or shoot me an email!
Life Story Links: February 2, 2021
Lots of memoir excerpts to inspire your own life story writing, plus more recent articles with tips and ideas for memory-keeping of all kinds.
“Life has been your art. You have set yourself to music. Your days are your sonnets.”
—Oscar Wilde
Children on sleds in Central Park in New York City, circa 1915, photograph by Bain News Service, courtesy Library of Congress Digital Collection.
The Craft of Ghostwriting (or Whatever You’d Like to Call It)
CHANNELING THEIR VOICES
“Readers just want the truth, particularly in a memoir. And they can really sense when they’re getting it. So I’m mostly hanging out, waiting for the truth to come out and reveal itself.” Michelle Burford on why she prefers to be called a “story architect” rather than a ghostwriter.
THEN AND NOW
Even before co-founding NYC–based Remarkable Life Memoirs, Samantha Shubert was in the business of helping tell empowering life stories. Here she shares a story about how a plum copyediting job inspired her, plus details on her company’s new hybrid memoir/cookbook offering.
Family History, Personal History
FINDING THE JOY
There are plenty of lists of generic family history interview questions around, but this one offers up an array of topics both silly and fun to add some levity to any probing personal history conversation.
STORIES OF BLACK EXPERIENCE
A Connecticut author describes her profound feelings upon reading an ancestor’s obituary—“I cried when I found out what his life was like, being enslaved, wanting to escape, wondering who he left behind”—and encourages Black families to study their genealogy to find personal stories of tragedy and triumph.
THE SHAPE OF US
“What is it that makes us, us?” Kat Nicholls asks in this piece that explores the role our memories play on our identity, and what happens when they’re taken from us.
END-OF-LIFE THOUGHTS
Most of the academic studies social psychologist Michael Ent was able to find were focused on practical aspects of support for the dying rather than on trying to harvest their wisdom—so he undertook a study to see what was on their minds.
PANDEMIC PIX
In an effort to preserve imagery from the Covid-19 pandemic, the Library of Congress’s ‘rapid response’ collecting has already secured special projects from nationally recognized artists and photographers. Now they have extended an offer to citizens across the country to submit their own pictures of pandemic experiences.
Lots of Great Memoir Reads
THE PRICE OF INNOCENCE
“I am a first-generation immigrant…but my real identity, the one that follows me around like a migraine, is that I am the daughter of immigrants,” Karla Cornejo Villavicencio writes in this evocative piece about waking up from the American dream.
A FITTING LEGACY
Deborah Orr never got to see her memoir, Motherwell, become a bestseller, as she died before its publication. In a recent podcast Damian Barr reads an excerpt from this “book about how a deeper understanding of the place and people you have come from can bring you toward redemption.”
IN THE WAKE OF DEVASTATING LOSS
“I feel it in me, that uncomplicated, devastating happiness; it is as true and tactile as anything I’ve ever felt. But behind that feeling lurks the panic that the world can drop out from beneath your feet at any time, because that’s true, too.” Read an excerpt from Emily Rapp Black’s memoir Sanctuary.
LEAVING HOME
“The way my father tells it, my mother was wrong and the police were wrong and my memories were wrong.” Memoirist Danielle Geller tells the story of a life by what was left behind in this excerpt from her new book, Dog Flowers.
BEYOND THE GREAT SILENCE
“Over many years I came to understand that I had been infused part of my father’s traumatic history. Why this happened I do not know. All I do know is that it became the dark ghost inside me, the lining of my heart, the stones of my kidneys.” Jonathan Lichtenstein on writing through the silences of a lost family history.
IMPORTED FROM DENMARK
“I bring news of Tove Ditlevsen’s suite of memoirs with the kind of thrill and reluctance that tells me this must be a masterpiece,” Parul Sehgal writes of The Copenhagen Trilogy: Childhood; Youth; Dependency, translated from the Danish.
Personal History Through Obits
AN ALL-STAR HUMAN
"It was supposed to be the greatest triumph of my life, but I was never allowed to enjoy it,” Hank Aaron said of his storied baseball career. "The only reason that some people didn't want me to succeed was because I was a Black man." Sports Illustrated and The New York Times laud a legend and a gentleman.
AKA LAWRENCE ZEIGER
An intent listener during his CNN interviews, Larry King was fond of saying, "I've never learned anything while I was talking." King, who conducted 50,000 interviews according to the BBC, is quoted by the LA Times as saying, “For this to all happen to a Jewish kid from Brooklyn is a damn impressive thing.”
...and a Few More Links
New “memory safe” product safeguards your digital and physical memories.
John Waters learns that his ancestor owned slaves.
A counselor speaks to the importance of memories and offers tips on how to preserve them.
Presidential biographies, and presidential mythologies
Preserving memories one flower at a time
Early Snapchat employee debuts Yoni Circle, a social storytelling app for womxn.
Project Memory Co. creates photo books with journaling elements.
Short Takes