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Life Story Links: June 14, 2022
This week's curated reading list for memory-keepers and family historians includes lots on saving and sharing a family legacy—and why it matters—plus, new memoir.
“He who digs into the past would know that barely a millionth of a second divides the past from the future..”
—Eugenio Montale
United Nations Heroes marching in the Flag Day parade during United Nations week in Oswego, New York, in June 1943. Photographed by Marjory Collins for the Office of War Information; courtesy of the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Digital Collection.
What we capture
AVOIDABLE REGRETS
Nearly half of Americans in a recent poll regret not recording or documenting conversations with loved ones who have died; and many people (44 percent) wish others would record or document conversations they have to preserve memories.
SO, LET’S START RECORDING!
In light of the above-mentioned poll, I put together some resources to make it easier for anyone to record conversations and gather stories from loved ones—so we can begin to see an upward trend in legacy preservation…and avoid regrets.
Our families, our stories
YOUR STORY, OR THEIRS?
“How do I write about social workers who harmed a child I love? How do I write about her mother? What do I owe them on the page?” Sarah Sentilles wrestles with the notion of writing about others in memoir.
MEMORIES OF THE POGROMS
“Grandma eventually came to learn that the only way I would fall asleep was by listening to the soft sound of her voice as she described in detail her early childhood in Russia.” A childhood interest in stories becomes a lifelong search for legacy—then, a book.
LEARNING TO LIVE WITH GHOSTS
The Korean tradition of jesa, or memorializing ancestors, helped Joseph Han understand that “our loved ones’ memories and histories suffuse our world and continue to shape our lives long after they have departed.”
BEDTIME STORY
“I am speaking to an audience of one, who happens to be the book’s foremost subject, my 74-year-old father, Joe, or Daddy as Northern Irish naming conventions insist he must be addressed.” Séamas O'Reilly on reading his memoir to his father.
WHAT CONTRADICTION?
On the latest episode of Schmaltzy, a podcast that explores the intersection of Jewish identity and food, Hillary Reinsberg shares stories about the distinctly German-Jewish way of doing things at her grandparents’ New York home:
The power of narrative exploration
CONFESSIONAL WRITING, REFINED
“Melissa Febos’s recent essay collection shows us not only how to capture the difficult, intimate details of our lives in writing, but why we should.” Adam Dalva on the necessity of creative confession.
THE STORY WE WRITE FOR OURSELF
“Will you take some chapters from your family’s history and courageously edit and fit them into the vision for your life’s purpose? Will you dare to write completely new chapters based on your true passions and desires?”
NARRATIVE MEDICINE IN PRACTICE
Read an excerpt from The Healing Power of Storytelling: Using Personal Narrative to Navigate Illness, Trauma, and Loss by Annie Brewster with Rachel Zimmerman, and listen to an interview with the author and Here & Now host Robin Young:
SLAVERY’S LEGACY: ORAL HISTORY PROJECT
“This kind of oral history project has never been done before. Many will, for the first time, hear the voices and memories of people whose personal experiences are still inextricably tied to racial slavery, the transatlantic slave trade, and colonialism.”
...and a few more links
New memoir of Chris Blackwell, founder of Island Records, reflects on helping bring the music of Bob Marley, U2 and Grace Jones to the world.
A one-page “Empathy Interview Guide” from Stanford d.School
On the True Stories Well Told blog: “10 Minutes to Death” by Marg Sumner
Short takes
Americans regret not recording stories of their loved ones—don’t be one of them.
Recording loved ones' stories is important to most Americans, and yet not even half of us have done so. Here, resources to make memory-keeping easier.
A recent poll of more than 6,000 Americans showed that only one in three Americans has recorded or documented a conversation with a loved one in order to preserve their memory of them.
Nearly half of those polled say they regret not doing so with someone who has died.
These stats sadden me, a devoted storyteller whose mission is to help as many people as possible preserve their own memories—and those of loved ones—for the next generations. While it saddens me, though, it doesn’t surprise me.
Why am I not surprised?
Why am I not surprised that so few people have taken the initiative to record stories from their loved ones? Well, first of all, it’s easy (so easy!) to take for granted that those we love will always be there. We don’t want to think about a time when they won’t—and preserving their stories for the future seems to somehow bring that notion to the fore.
Moreover, for many people recording stories seems like a daunting task: Won’t it take too long? What questions would I ask? How would I record the conversations? What would I do with them afterwards?
For some, telling their own stories seems vain (it’s not). Still others think they have no stories to tell—or that no one would care to hear them (again, not likely; I haven’t met a person yet who didn’t have some amazing stories inside them—and everyone underestimates how their stories will be received by loved ones).
So, no, I am not surprised that 59 percent of Americans have not recorded conversations with a loved one. But I do see change on the horizon.
Rays of hope
“Maybe it’s the younger generation’s familiarity with technology...that makes this task more approachable—obvious, even.”
I see a glimmer of hope amidst these poll results, too: Younger respondents were by far the most likely to have said “yes, I have recorded a conversation of a loved one in order to preserve my memory of them.” While only about a quarter of folks aged 45-65 have recorded a loved one’s stories, 44 percent of those 18-to-29 have, and 42 percent of those 30-44. Not quite double the older participants, but almost!
Maybe it’s the younger generation’s familiarity with technology and their engrained habit of recording so many things in their daily lives, that makes this task more approachable—obvious, even.
Or perhaps it’s millennials’ well-documented love of nostalgia.
Whatever the reason, the trend is on the upswing: More younger members in American families are recording conversations with loved ones!
Resources for recording your own family stories
Are your ready to hop on the memory-keeping bandwagon and record a conversation with a loved one? Let’s work together to bring these numbers up—to make story preservation an everyday thing that, dare we day, a majority of Americans not only strive to do, but really DO!
A wonderful thing that will happen along the way if we indeed begin to record our personal histories? We’ll all have fewer regrets.
In order to help with your DIY story gathering, here are some time-tested resources that I offer to you for free—please don’t download them unless you plan to put them to use 😉
FREE E-BOOK DOWNLOADS
HELPFUL ARTICLES FOR RECORDING YOUR LOVED ONE’S STORIES
Life Story Links: May 31, 2022
This week's roundup by personal historian Dawn Roode includes inspiring first person reads, memoir news, and pieces on the intersection of life and story.
“We listen with different ears when we can feel and believe that a story is true.”
—Editors at The Moth
Vintage postcard depicting sea bathers in Avalon, Santa Catalina, California, circa 1903. Courtesy of the Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs: Photography Collection, The New York Public Library Digital Collection.
Our Lives, Our Stories
THIS IS YOUR LIFE
“Suddenly, ordinary lives are of note,” The Guardian reports in this look at the growing personal history industry; moreover, “the way we tell stories of our lives can shape our memories.”
A STORY, DISTILLED
“Memoir writers tell what happened, what we feel about it, and what we learned. We hope our lessons are universal. We must always look beyond events to the layers below.” Lessons from revising a 100-word mini-memoir for The New York Times.
WHERE’S MOM?
Too often these days moms aren’t represented in family photos, leaving a regrettable gap. Mali Bain, a personal historian in Canada, shares a recent life story book that put one grandmother “center stage, as many mothers and grandmothers are in our own childhood memories.”
TWO STORYTELLERS, IN CONVERSATION
“Our memories are anything but fixed—and when stories are passed down to a new generation, their malleability, their meaning, and their impact change, too”: One of my favorite interviews I’ve conducted to date, with memoirist and podcast host Rachael Cerrotti.
Asking the Questions
AN AUDITORY SNIPPET OF LIFE
“As a journalist, I have spent many hours in front of other people’s grandparents recording their stories for work. Usually the offspring are there with me and express a fascination at all the previously untold and hidden stories that come tumbling out of their elders when the right questions are asked. This was the first time I had recorded my own.”
INTERVIEWER EXTRAORDINAIRE
Terry Gross, host of NPR’s Fresh Air, “has perfected a singular kind of interview; she is part conversationalist, part therapist, and part oral historian…. Above all, she is a great listener—attentive, probing, without ever feeling intrusive”:
Memoir Morsels
TASTY READS
Cookbooks are becoming more memoir-like. These hybrid books bring readers “on an emotional journey. Then they get to leave with a recipe and actually eat the food; that’s a really intense, intimate connection between reader and writer.”
NEW MICHAEL CIMINO BIOGRAPHY
“Every biography could be two books rather than one—the work itself and the nonfiction making-of detailing the journalistic adventures that yield the biographical record.” A look at a new biography of the director of The Deer Hunter and Heaven’s Gate.
First Person Reads to Inspire
A FLASH ESSAY FOR MEMORIAL DAY
“The world was sleeping, we were deploying, ocean-crossing.” With staccato pacing and gut-punching language, Laura Joyce-Hubbard writes about serving her country: “We were always leaving.”
FINDING LOVE (BY ACCIDENT)
“My very first date with Produce Man landed on the second anniversary of my father’s death. I took this as a sign that my father had sent him from the heavens and it was bashert, the Jewish term for ‘destiny.’”
Stuff, Stories, History
“ACCUMULATION OF LIFE”
“If it was just junk, it would not be so hard. But possessions have meaning; they tell stories and reinforce our memories.” A look at the “emotional challenge to dealing with the treasure and trash that your parents leave behind.”
A HOUSE’S HISTORY, REDISCOVERED
Leslie Stahl turns the 60 Minutes lens on the story of how an Air Force veteran discovered his new house was the seat of a plantation where his ancestors were enslaved. Plus, the original article that inspired her piece: “An old Virginia plantation, a new owner and a family legacy unveiled.”
SAYING SORRY WITH DUMPLINGS
Salt Lake City–based personal historian Rhonda Lauritzen was close to her brother growing up. “Then we weren’t,“ she writes. “I made mistakes, caused some deep hurts, and I never really said the words I’m sorry. So I said the words.” And cooked Grandma’s dumplings.
...and a few more links
He co-founded Covid Stories Archive to combat what he saw as biases and limitations of Congress’s proposed COVID-19 American History Project Act.
Preserve your memories with these easy scrapbooking ideas.
In his latest email newsletter Tucson–based video biographer Steve Pender looks at using Zoom for legacy audio recordings.
Legacy: In Memory of Roger Angell, 1920-2022
Short Takes
On the ever-changing nature of our stories: In conversation with Rachael Cerrotti
Our memories are anything but fixed—and when stories are passed down to a new generation, their malleability, their meaning, and their impact change, too.
“It’s the best part of storytelling for me, that it’s never going to stay the same.”
—Rachael Cerrotti
Memoirist and host of the podcast “We Share the Same Sky,” Rachael Cerrotti
Rachael Cerrotti knew her grandmother Hana’s story when she was growing up. Hana, or Mutti, as she was called by her loved ones, was a Holocaust survivor. She visited schools to share her testimony with young students. She spoke with Rachael about her past.
But stories have chapters, and they are received differently by different people at different times in their lives. Stories can be told one way to a group of students, and another to a young, devoted granddaughter. Those same stories may take on an entirely new mien when handwritten in a private journal, captured in the moment with no distance for reflection.
What is Hana Dubová’s story, then?
Well, of course, there isn’t just one.
Rachael—a granddaughter, photojournalist, podcast host, and author—has explored her grandmother’s story faithfully. During her college years, cognizant of the fact that Hana was getting older, Rachael began getting together regularly with her grandmother, recording their conversations along the way. After Hana passed away in 2010, Rachael says she spent the first half of her twenties on her bedroom floor in Boston, going through Hana’s diaries and the rich archive she left behind. She would eventually retrace her grandmother’s footsteps, traveling through Europe and getting to know, intimately, those who knew Hana and her story. As Stephen D. Smith, executive director of the USC Shoah Foundation, writes in the foreword to Rachael’s book, We Share the Same Sky, “She made her grandmother’s homes and hiding places her homes, her places to hide.”
I have recommended We Share the Same Sky in a formal review and gifted the book to friends; I have extolled the podcast—a must-listen for anyone who values stories and family; and recently I was fortunate enough to chat with Rachael about the (inevitable, frustrating, and beautiful) flexibility of memory.
The same stories may hold different meaning for us at different times in our life.
“The story has grown up as I have grown up,” Rachael writes in the preface to We Share the Same Sky.
While Rachael gradually reveals Hana’s story to us, she also weaves in her own perspective and life changes, making for a poignant and powerful meditation on the meaning of inherited trauma and the elasticity of memory. She writes to her grandmother: “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.” And isn’t that the nature of all family stories?
Often I talk about the enduring value of our stories: When we hear stories from family members about their experiences, we usually ruminate longest over the ones that feel the most familiar to us. Rachael echoes this during our conversation, admitting that if she is one day blessed with being a mother and a grandmother, she will most certainly see her grandmother’s stories in a new light again with each milestone.
When Rachael revisited her grandmother’s testimony after her husband’s death, she found new meaning, new depth there: “It was guidance and it was permission and it was warmth, and the words just carried everything within it,” she said.
“I think we're all drawn to stories that impact us in some ways and that feel relevant,” she said.
“We all kind of hold onto the stories that we need to hear, and I think a lot of us dig into our past trying to reckon with something or to try to understand ourselves better,” Rachael said. “Realizing that our memories are malleable gives us some ownership over them, different than just being resigned to them.”
Beyond fact-checking: Our narratives hold truths, even when they are contradictory.
While We Share the Same Sky is based on Rachel’s own experiences and research during her immersive travels as well as her grandmother’s personal writing, she did not turn to libraries or historical records to fact-check her grandmother’s stories (except for instances when an occasional age or date did not cohere).
“What I was always drawn to was the stories we tell ourselves and the stories we tell our kin, and those have nothing to do with the archives,” she told me.
In the book, she writes: “There are cracks in all our memories; sometimes they are exposed by our own inconsistencies, sometimes they are challenged by other people’s perspectives, and sometimes they change with time.”
Indeed, have you ever reread an old diary entry only to wonder, Did I really write that? Or even, Did I really feel that? Has the way you have told a single important story—say, coming out of the closet as a teen, or emigrating to a new country—changed over time? With time comes perspective, and with perspective comes a new way of regarding our experiences. Each telling of our stories reveals new truths.
“Stories do not have to be stuck in time,” Rachael said. “There are so many versions of stories that can all contradict each other and still all be truthful.”
Our ancestors’ stories become our stories.
One of the things that drew me to Rachael’s body of work, I told her, was how she deftly wove Hana’s story into the fabric of her own. Stephen Smith recognized this, too, writing: “What Rachael seemed to know is that her jumbled identity was not a godforsaken hand-me-down but a tapestry of individual stitches that needed to be understood to appreciate the whole. As you read this book, you will see each of those colorful stitches painfully embroidered into her life one by one.”
“Originally this was a story of people that had passed away,” Rachael told me. “This was a story of history. And then getting to meet all these people and having them meet my curiosity where it was at—that was this invitation to keep coming back.”
“These relationships don’t stop because you’ve stopped writing the story,” she said. “The story doesn’t end because you send it in to the publisher. That’s that chapter, and that’s okay.”
Hana’s life has informed and shaped her granddaughter’s. And Rachael has honored Hana’s legacy by revealing the nuances and truths in her diaries, and by encountering—and re-integrating—her stories again and again. In the epilogue, she writes directly to Mutti:
“I have completely lost myself in your story, creating for myself an experience out of each of your retellings. What started as a simple family history project has become this web of community. When I pull a thread in one part of the world, the story in another place changes. Your memories have become my landmarks, the symbols of my own past.”
Each of us is writing our own narrative, transitioning from one chapter to the next, weaving our ancestors’ stories into our own. I hope you will read We Share the Same Sky with this in mind, and—as Rachel hopes, as well—inspire conversation and story sharing between not just grandmothers and granddaughters, but among generations of your own family.
Discover Rachael Cerrotti’s work
Listen to her podcast of the same name.
Follow her on Instagram for updates on her life, upcoming appearances, and future endeavors.
And perhaps most exciting, Rachael is launching a new podcast this week, called The Memory Generation, subtitled “Conversations about our memories.”
Affiliate disclosure: As an Amazon Associate, we may earn commissions from qualifying purchases from Amazon.com.
Life Story Links: May 17, 2022
For memoirists: Writing tips and inspiring first-person reads. For family historians: heirloom books themes and photo stories. This week's curated reading list.
“…writing has become for me a primary means of digesting and integrating my experiences and thereby reducing the pains of living, or if not, at least making them useful to myself and to others. There is no pain in my life that has not been given value by the alchemy of creative attention.”
—Melissa Febos
This vintage photo of boys on a tricycle in New York City was taken by Morris Huberland circa 1950. Photograph courtesy of The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints, and Photographs, New York Public Library Digital Collection.
Preserving our stories
OUT IN NOVEMBER
Bono reads an excerpt from his memoir Surrender: 40 Songs, One Story, due to be published in November. An animation from Bono’s own drawings accompanies his words from the chapter titled “Out of Control,” which tells the story of how Bono began writing U2's first single on his 18th birthday, May 10, 1978:
THE DANCE OF MOTHERHOOD
Stories don’t always have to be told with words. In this gallery, photographers capture their own experiences as mothers through pictures—self-reflective, narratively engaging, and vibrant.
WHICH STORIES TO TELL?
From life story books to a family history collection, from travel journals to heritage cookbooks, last week I offered up 10 favorite heirloom book themes to inspire those who want to preserve their stories but have no idea which stories to focus on.
PHOTOGRAPHIC MEMORIES
Head to “storytelling school” with The Moth: This lesson offers tips and exercises for telling a good story from a photograph, as well as a storytelling video to inspire.
HISTORIAN TURNS FOCUS ON HIMSELF
“An American Childhood…succeeds as memoir by carefully narrating the protagonists’ experiences as they perceived them as children and as teenagers, not filtered through subsequent informed and reasoned understanding. It succeeds as history by gently noting the faultiness of those perceptions.”
TASTY MEMORIES
“I feel like our kids know Nana still, because…they know when we make the chocolate chip cookies from her cookbook, those are Nana’s cookies.” Minneapolis–based company preserves food memories with personalized cookbooks.
Shadow play
GENEALOGY PROBLEMS
“We know that ‘race’ is a social construct. We need to acknowledge the ways in which ‘ancestry’ is, too.” The New Yorker looks at the “twisted roots” of our obsession with ancestry.
HOLDING THE PAIN
“I like to think it is the solemn duty of a writer to record stories that need to be heard, but it has occurred to me over the course of this work that listening and bearing witness to trauma is the duty of all citizens in a community. It’s what connects us.”
First-person stories that captured me
“DEAR MOM…”
“I’ve missed my mom every day, but suddenly the pain of not having her felt acute, a pain that I turned against myself for being a lousy daughter.” Twenty-four years after her mother's death, Liza Deyrmenjian writes a letter to her mom.
“THIEVES”
“I sit, I lie, and memory rises, memory merges. My marooned mother. My marooned self.” Beth Kephart sets up two parallel situations—seeking answers, sleuthing patterns, writing her way to truth
LESSONS FROM HER FATHER
“Growing up, my father took me to libraries the way other fathers took their kids to the park or the movies. It wasn’t just that he loved or appreciated them—he believed in them like some believe in churches, religions, God.”
Pieces of the past
A RECKONING WITH CLUTTER, GRIEF, AND MEMORIES
The New York Times has curated a selection of letters from readers recounting stories of dealing with a lifetime of possessions—their own or a loved one’s—and the memories and emotions attached to them.
THE URGE TO COLLECT
Enjoy this conversation about the urge to collect, the stories embedded in certain objects, and how some items can unearth stories from the person who covets them:
LOOKING BACK
On this episode of Canadian podcast Now or Never, the hosts explore how reading love letters from the 1920s is helping one woman deal with heartache; talk to three siblings digging through the contents of their childhood home; and talk about how pieces of the past can help shape your future. Listen in.
Miscellaneous
INTERESTING THEATER REVIEW
The main character of this Chicago stage production “considers memory to be a kind of photography.” The action of At the Vanishing Point hinges on an old photo discovered at a garage sale, linking characters across time and place.
...and a few more links
How a debut graphic memoir became the most banned book in the country.
Read an excerpt from the new book Anna: The Biography, about Vogue editor (and my former boss) Anna Wintour.
Nostalgic remembrance: old photo brings back memories of Grandma’s pies.
How a Holocaust survivor finally learned her own birth name.
Pandemic sparks autobiography for Delaware State professor.
Ethics considerations for conducting research for your narrative nonfiction among friends
Consider a family history book series to preserve your family heritage.
A best seller in France, Camille Kouchner’s memoir The Familia Grande is an indictment of incest that started a national reckoning.
Personal stories of hardships endured in WWII Japanese internment camps told through augmented reality exhibit in Los Angeles.
Read the newly released Spring 2022 issue of Creative Nonfiction.
Get a free guide from Rachel LaCour Niesen, founder of Save Family Photos: “3 Simple Steps to Backing Up Your Family Photos.”
Short takes
10 Heirloom book ideas to preserve your family history
From life story books to a family history collection, from travel journals to heritage cookbooks, our founder lists 10 of her favorite heirloom book themes.
Maybe you’ve thought about preserving your own or your family’s stories in a book for the next generation. But where to begin? How to narrow down a topic?
Don’t worry, I’ve got you covered. Here are 10 of my favorite heirloom book themes, and I’m willing to bet one of them jumps out at you as just-right for your situation. And if not? No worries, all of our books are fully custom, so let’s chat.
A family cookbook—complete with the stories behind the recipes—is a great option for families whose love language is food.
1 - a heritage cookbook
Be transported to the kitchen of your childhood! Celebrate dishes that have been passed down through generations in a bespoke book that weaves your family’s cherished food memories with nostalgic photographs and handwritten recipes.
2 - LOVE STORY
Perhaps you were bequeathed a beribboned stash of your great-grandparents’ love letters. Or maybe it’s your own love story—how you met, how you choose one another every day, maybe how you almost didn’t meet—that you’d like to share. Let the love flow...
Record your journeys in a travel book so you can revisit your memories from the comfort of home (and inspire the next generation to travel in your footsteps).
3 - travel journal
Are you a voyager? Don’t just make a photo album; record memories. Wherever your journeys take you (an African safari? The Maldives? Alaskan glaciers?), our travel books help you not only remember the places, but relive the moments—and ‘travel’ back there from the comfort of your home.
Your stories matter—tell them in your own words, and they will resonate with loved ones for generations.
4 - your words, your stories
Whether you’ve written a full-on memoir (if you’re partway through, we can help you finish!) or want to capture episodes of your life through a series of personal interviews, tell your own story. It matters. To you, and to those you love. Now is always the right time!
Honor a loved one’s memory by preserving tributes in an heirloom book that you and your family can open any time to feel closer to them.
5 - in remembrance
Is there a family member who has passed that you would like to honor? Let’s gather written tributes remembering them with dignity, humor, and grace, then curate photos that capture their spirit. Bound with love, this tribute book will become your most cherished heirloom.
6 - FAMILY HISTORY BOOK
Have you caught the genealogy bug? Consider this: It is highly unlikely your ancestors will be thrilled to sort through 18 boxes of census records and ship manifests, no matter how meticulously catalogued they are. They will, however, read a story. So give them one.
7 - home is where the heart is
As Henry Louis Gates, Jr., says, we are all immigrants. Do you know where your ancestors were born? Have you taken a heritage trip? Perhaps your family lived on the same NYC block for generations. We can bring the stories of your homeland to life, so they are never lost.
8 - LESSONS LEARNED
With experience comes wisdom. By reflecting on the full journey of your life—including challenges overcome and opportunities missed—you leave a legacy that the next generation can both learn from and find inspiration in. Go deep, and be rewarded deeply.
9 - CONVERSATIONS WITH GRANDMA
We’ll conduct interviews with your grandmother or other family elder, gather memorabilia, and find the narrative thread that best captures her story, then weave it all together beautifully. Don’t wait until it’s too late to ask questions.
10 - places in the heart
This book makes your favorite place the central character and gives meaning to the phrase, “If these walls could talk…” Think a beloved family vacation home, a longtime sleep-away camp, or the college you’ve all (multiple generations!) attended.
Life Story Links: May 3, 2022
This week's curated reading list is heavy on quality articles to help you tell your stories well plus inspiring first-person reads and interesting legacy takes.
“I am fooling only myself when I say that my mother exists now only in the photographs on my bulletin board or in the outline of my hand or in the armful of memories I still hold tight. She lives on beneath everything I do. Her presence influenced who I was and her absence influences who I am. Our lives are shaped as much by those who leave us as they are by those who stay. Loss is our legacy. Insight is our gift. Memory is our guide.”
—Hope Edelman
On this vintage postcard, horse-drawn carriages idle along Richmond Avenue at Bergen Point Ferry in Staten Island, New York. Image courtesy of the Irma and Paul Milstein Division of United States History, Local History and Genealogy, The New York Public Library Digital Collections.
Your stories, well told
TELL A CAPTIVATING STORY
“Leveling up our storytelling game can lead to more meaningful connections.” Here’s a step-by-step guide on how to tell a story, from an idea to delivery, from the editors of The Moth’s new book, How to Tell a Story:
DOUBLE THE STORIES
While I interview people for their stories regularly as part of my business, a big part of my mission is to inspire and empower families to conduct such interviews themselves. Last week I offered tips for interviewing a couple (your parents, say, or one set of grandparents) together.
TWO TALENTS TRADE INSIGHTS
“I’m not going to share [traumas from my life] for the sake of sharing.... I’m sharing what needs to be shared as part of this story. To do right by the story I’m creating, I’ve got to put in the right ingredients.” Marion Roach Smith interviews Mary Laura Philpott about how to write a memoir in essays. Listen in:
In their own words
“SWEET SPOT”
“I bummed rides home after practice. I bummed clothes, snacks, socks, money for the vending machine, and anything else I needed to survive.” This personal essay from Jennifer Shields transported me with time-specific details and a powerful remembrance of adolescence.
HER SERBIAN GRANDFATHER
“During the Nazi occupation, the Gestapo chose our hotel for their headquarters. I haven’t decided if it’s a sign of disrespect to that past, or a mark of triumph that we’re staying here now.” Julie Brill remembers a childhood interrupted by genocide.
THE DRIVE TO SUCCEED
“It has dawned on me lately that insecurity is one of the biggest killers of art,” Alice Walker wrote in October, 1977. Take a deep dive into her journals with this reflective and engaging piece in The New Yorker.
STILL LIFE
Award-winning writer Jhumpa Lahiri talks about a few of her favorite things, including a book she bought when she was 12 years old and “a road map to how to write” from a university professor.
Beginning, ending
NEW ITALIAN SURNAME CONVENTIONS
“Italy had until now carried “a story of male biographies,’ [one Italian official] said. “The surname is part of one’s identity and personal history, a story that we can now pass on written in the feminine.’”
WHAT IS LEGACY?
“Surveys conducted show that when faced with end-of-life planning, Boomers (and older generations) are more concerned about the loss of their values and personal history than the loss of their wealth,” personal historian Clémence Scouten writes in this pub from the Philadelphia Estate Planning Council (scroll to page 11 for the article).
MEMORY FLASHBACKS OF DYING
A patient whose brain waves were being studied by doctors died suddenly during the recordings; the resulting scientific data may be consistent with our idea that our “life flashes before us” just before death.
Miscellaneous
TESTIMONIES ON THE BLOCKCHAIN
The first Holocaust museum in the metaverse aims to use NFTs to transform survivors’ tragic memories into artistic visual presentations.
COOKING UP THE PAST
A new film premiering June 1 as part of the Tenement Museum’s annual fundraising gala will focus on food traditions, family stories, and local history; virtual attendance is donation-optional. The film, which looks at the American immigrant experience through the lens of food, was inspired by Padma Lakshmi’s visit to the Lower East Side museum, as featured on this episode of Taste the Nation:
...and a few more links
Holocaust survivors ask Israel museum to return one-of-a-kind Haggadah.
The LIFE Picture Collection is launching a non-fungible token (NFT) collection of its legendary photography.
Apple Photos adds “sensitive locations” filter to Memories functionality.
Check out this free hour-long webinar from Creative Nonfiction managing editor, Hattie Fletcher, on writing long-form.
Short Takes
Double the fun: Interviewing Grandma & Grandpa together
Sitting both of your grandparents down together for a family storytelling session can be fun—but it’ll yield the best results if you follow these simple tips.
Conducting family history interviews with a couple such as your grandparents or parents can be a fun endeavor if you ask the right questions.
I am always thrilled when I hear you have a plan not just to interview one family elder, but to gather stories from multiple relatives. One of the most common goals is to interview a couple—perhaps it’s your parents, or one set or the other of your grandparents. If that’s on the agenda, you may be wondering: Can I interview them together?
Short answer: Yes, you can interview two people together.
Here, though, is a longer answer with tips for when this dual interview approach works best, and when it’s better to stick to conversing with one person at a time.
When dual interviews are okay
It’s absolutely okay—fun, even—to conduct joint interview sessions, especially with couples who have been together for a long time. If you plan to interview your grandparents on both sides of your family, for instance, invite your maternal grandmother and grandfather to sit down together for the first interview session. This will take advantage of their storytelling dynamic to get them excited about sharing.
If you are concerned that your family members may talk over one another, let them—at least for a bit. Their banter is likely the product of years together, and capturing it on film (if you are recording video) or in audio (if are using a voice recorder) is an accurate representation of how they interact. Imagine years from now listening in and thinking, “Oh, that’s so him!!” If you can’t follow the progress of their storytelling because they are interrupting or speaking at the same time, gently prod one or the other to take the lead, then ask a follow-up of their partner after.
A couple’s shared history can be explored in a joint interview: Ask questions that apply to their time together (their marriage, children, and holidays, for example), but save questions about their individual histories for their solo interviews.
Once that first interview session is transcribed, highlight sections that resonate but that you’d like to hear more about, and develop your questions for the next individual interviews from this transcript—it will help guide you on what to ask.
When joint interviews aren’t the best option
I would not recommend conducting all of your interviews in this fashion, with more than one subject at once, as it often prohibits one person from diving deep into their stories.
Maybe dad gets quieter when mom is around; it could be deference, or simply habit. He may think she is a better storyteller than he is, so he lets her take the lead. I guarantee you he has something substantive—or funny, or clarifying—to add, though, and he may just be more likely to do so in a one-on-one setting.
Other times dual interviews are not ideal:
If the couple’s relationship is strained or difficult.
If one person is hearing impaired.
If you are wanting to explore more about their personal histories rather than their shared family history.
When interviews must be conducted remotely.
If you’re only planning on conducting one interview (you’ll get better—deeper, thoughtful—answers during a one-on-one interview).
Preparing for your family history interviews
Whether you choose to begin with a joint interview session or not, you’ll want to be prepared with the right questions and optimal equipment. Here are a few resources that should help:
interview questions
Use this set of family history interview questions as a basis for forming your own list.
Pick an opening question that will set the right tone for your interview.
Interview setup
