Memories Matter
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Don’t put your memoir on your bucket list.
If writing your memoir means enough to you to put it on a bucket list, please read this—I’ll help you easily move it from future project to present-day endeavor.
A “bucket list” is a great idea—IF you plan on ticking things off that list by actually doing them! Too often, though, a bucket list is relegated to the portion of our brain for long-term dreams—the future.
Any and every item you have penciled in on your bucket list deserves not just a little hopeful dreaming every now and then, but a plan—a way to make your future dreams your present reality!
So, research that trip you’ve always wanted to take to Spain—then turn your research into an itinerary and an international ticket. Want to become more conversant in wine-speak? Sign up for an introductory class at your local community college, then invite a few friends over for treats and a tasting. Want to write your memoir? Pick up a pen and…what?
How to start your memoir, now.
If you dream of passing on your stories but don’t start now, you won’t ever get to it.
And it’s important: It’s important to you, because crafting your experiences into a narrative can help you make sense of your story, find meaning in your life, and navigate future choices with greater intention; it’s important for your family members because your experiences—especially those that demonstrate resilience—can help strengthen them, and, well, because they love you (tell me you wouldn’t be overcome with emotion to receive a book of your parents’ or grandparents’ stories written just for you?!).
But chances are your dream of writing your memoir will remain on your bucket list if you don’t know where to start. So, start here:
Decide if you’re up for writing your stories.
If you’re comfortable writing, then get yourself a notebook just for your memoir, or create a new file on your laptop. If the idea of writing scares the bejeezus out of you, then simply decide to speak and record your stories instead.Consider what part(s) of your life are worth telling.
This one may take a day—or even a week—but you shouldn’t be paralyzed by the choices here. Maybe you write a life timeline or follow the guidance here about brainstorming your life, then choose from among the ideas. Or maybe you just start with your most compelling memories—the ones that come to mind often or that you’ve told verbally around the dinner table for years. Just remember: Just because you write it doesn’t mean it will necessarily make the cut of what gets into your final memoir; and just because you start here doesn’t mean you can’t veer over there later. The idea is to be thoughtful and intentional about choosing a memoir theme or scope without letting the task delay your actual writing unnecessarily.Imagine your book done, then make a plan for it to get done.
Take just a moment to visualize your finished memoir. Let it soak in: Yes, it’s possible; yes, you can do it. Then forget about that finished book lest the blank page before you prove too daunting. In terms of making a plan, keep it simple—schedule a couple of hours a week, or whatever you can spare, for writing. Then, honor that time on your calendar and schedule around it.Begin writing—now.
Seriously, right now. When you finish reading this post, jot down a sentence, then another. If you want to begin with some phrases and initial brainstorming, fine…but write a full paragraph of autobiographical writing straight out of the gate.
There are plenty of other steps I could have inserted in there:
researching best methods for writing a memoir
reading other memoirs as inspiration
knowing who the audience for your memoir will be
checking your old journals for ideas
gathering photographs to use as memory prompts…and on and on.
And while all of those things are valid ways of making your memoir better, they’re also great excuses for not starting! Perfection, as they say, is the enemy of “done.”
So do what you need to in order to commit to starting your memoir. Print out the list of four actions above and check them off as you go. Or add them into your phone schedule or paper planner so time is blocked off (otherwise I can assure you more “urgent” matters will take their place!). But foremost among these steps: Pick up your pen or open your laptop and start writing.
If you really need to procrastinate a little more (!) and want to explore some ways to make your memoir great, check out these helpful posts:
Life Story Links: November 15, 2022
On tap this week: A host of memoir-ish media recommendations, plenty about preserving legacies of those who have come before us, and tips for writing our lives.
“So let us leave words for those we love in order that we may journey with them long after we are gone, and let it not take imminent death for us to find those words and craft a more meaningful legacy.”
—Rabbi Steve Leder
Vintage promotional photo for Automat coffee, courtesy of the Manuscripts and Archives Division, The New York Public Library Digital Collections.
Memoir-ish media
FAMOUS DIRECTOR’S AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL FILM
“I started thinking, what’s the one story I haven’t told that I’d be really mad at myself if I don’t? It was always the same answer every time: the story of my formative years growing up between 7 and 18.” Steven Spielberg gets personal.
WALKING WITH GHOSTS
“It’s not even so much about my life. I put my life out there so you can think about yours.” Gabriel Byrne on the stage adaptation of his acclaimed 2020 memoir, Walking With Ghosts.
ACCUMULATED MEMORY
“Memory permits us all to have an authentic relationship to our national narrative. These discrete stories and moments, anecdotes and memories, become the building blocks of our collective experience alongside our individual identities.” Ken Burns on the intersection of individual intimacy and national narrative.
AN UNDOCUMENTED CHILDHOOD
“My biggest fear is that with my parents will die the last of my ties to my familial roots. And in response to that fear, to preempt the feelings that might emerge, I am tempted give up and let those ties fade now.” Read a memoir excerpt from Qian Julie Wang.
COMPLICATED FAMILY HISTORY
When Rachel Knight started looking into her family’s genealogy, she came across a history her grandmother had typed years before, and a shocking discovery. She and her brother share this part of their family legacy in Invented Before You Were Born, previewed here:
Lasting legacies
‘HERE AFTER” AI
Digital clones of the people we love could forever change how we grieve. Are we ready for such technology that lets us “speak” to our dead relatives?
IN LOVING MEMORY
Last week I wrote about how I’ve gotten to know more than 50 people I’ve never met this year by editing tributes in their honor—and why this is a worthy endeavor.
GLOBAL ACCESS TO TESTIMONIES
USC Shoah Foundation has completely overhauled its Visual History Archive.“The result is an incredible new resource that humanizes testimony in a way that has never before been possible.”
HER PERSONAL UNDERTAKING
New York teen author Suzette Sheft says, “My father’s death forced me to understand the importance of preserving the stories of our loved ones before it is too late. At 13, I learned that I could not let my family’s stories fade away, no matter the pain that comes with remembering.”
Writing our lives
OVERCOMING STORY-INERTIA
“It takes courage and commitment to begin and maintain the process of creating a written narrative of the past,” New Hampshire–based personal historian Peggy Rosen writes in this piece offering approaches from Guided Autobiography.
WRITING ABOUT THE HARD STUFF
“I always find that if you are hesitant to share something difficult but feel a nudge to do so, you should go for it. It’s probably because you need to share to help yourself or someone else,” writes Rachel Trotter of Evalogue Life.
THROUGH LIVES, THROUGH DEATHS
“I didn’t believe I was a writer yet, but I made a note of it,” Sorayya Khan says of learning her father had 10 years to live. “Writing renders our world and ourselves. It has saved me more than once.”
...and a few more links
How Taylor Swift and Joe Brainard led one writer on an exploration of writing in the present tense
The author of Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret recalls the confusion and joy around a female rite of passage.
A wonderful way to honor veterans’ stories in Ontario
Short takes
How I’ve gotten to know more than 50 people I’ve never met this year
How lucky I am to "meet" your loved ones through the tributes you and others share in their honor! The stories that memorialize them live on for generations.
Kathy was an incredible mentor, a champion of women in the workforce, and a grandmother whose pride outshone other grandmothers everywhere.
Jim was an avid outdoorsman who found meaning in faith later in life, fell in love when he least expected it, and left a blueprint for how to live for his children.
Jen, who battled cancer like a warrior, embodied positivity, maintained lifelong friendships with her sorority sisters, bought a camper van to go on adventures with her twin daughters, and made killer chocolate chip pancakes.
Lena was a Russian Jewish immigrant who approached the world with a sense of wonder and gratitude, found great joy in motherhood, and once inspired a friend to buy half a cow (that one’s a long story, but well worth hearing!).
I never met Kathy, Jim, Jen, or Lena, but I feel like I knew them—the best of them, the pieces of them that friends, family, and colleagues wrote about in tributes that promise to keep their legacies alive for their loved ones and the next generation.
Tribute books that honor the legacy of lost loved ones
Since I launched Modern Heirloom Books in 2016 upon writing and designing a tribute book in honor of my mom, who had died suddenly shortly after I became a mom myself, I have helped more than 100 people honor their own lost loved ones in such books. It is, truly, one of the greatest honors of my career to memorialize people in this way.
When I help people tell their own stories through personal history interviews or memoir coaching, I often talk about how the journey is as important as the finished product. Similarly, when I talk with people who want to celebrate the life of someone they have loved and lost, I talk not just about the journey (because writing about loss can certainly be a healing path through grief), but about the experience after the book is printed: The book, I advise, should be a living memorial, something that you pull out to ‘visit’ with the deceased through the photos and words on the page.
Most people who come to me hoping to make a memorial tribute book do so with the intention of gifting them to the children of the deceased. Sometimes, those children are adults who have given the eulogy at their parent’s funeral service; other times, they are mere babies who will have no real memories of their parent.
Many times, a spouse, parent, or child wants to memorialize their relative in print for themselves and their family.
Either way, gathering stories about the deceased from a group of people ensures that many sides of their personality are highlighted. Work colleagues share stories that family members likely never heard before. Friends offer up remembrances from younger years that enlighten another side of the subject. And family members get to the heart of the person, telling everyday stories alongside monumental ones, revealing what they loved about the person, what they will miss, what they want to remember.
All of these tributes together create a lasting legacy of the deceased, and I am privileged and honored to help usher them into the world—just as I am privileged and honored to “get to know” these individuals through the love and words of those they have left behind.
Tribute book resources and ideas
8 tips for creating your own tribute book in honor of a lost loved one
If you’d like to create a book but would rather have professional guidance along the way, contact Dawn to learn how we could work together on a tribute book or other heirloom book project.
Life Story Links: November 1, 2022
This week's curated roundup includes Dawn’s book and film picks, meditations on memoir, and more recent articles of interest to personal and family historians.
“Remembering is a serious business. It demands attention. For a journey into the past, you have to pick your moment.”
—Charles Fernyhough
Vintage photo of a kids’ football team, October 1947, by Wallace Kirkland for LIFE magazine; © Time.
Memoir minutia
THOSE STORIES YOU’VE TUCKED AWAY
“For a long time, I used to say that I ran away from memoir by writing fiction. I don’t believe that anymore. I think if anything, my fiction writing helped lead me to my heart, to the stories I really wanted to write, to my essays and memoir.” Vanessa Mártir on writing the ghosts that haunt.
THE UNASSAILABILITY OF MEMORY
“Memory is a pinball in a machine — it messily ricochets around between image, idea, fragments of scenes, stories you’ve heard.” Mary Karr on navigating memory while writing memoir.
Life. legacies, POV
WHO GETS THE LAST WORD?
“It’s clear to those who have contributed material that the archive is about safeguarding Mr. Jobs’s legacy. It’s a goal that many of them support.” But some historians worry: Is it more tribute than archive?
OUTLIVING HIS FATHER
“At some point in my early twenties, it occurred to me that although he was no longer here, with me, my father’s life was like a map unfurling beneath mine.” Read an excerpt from Thomas Beller’s new book.
THE JOURNAL DILEMMA
“Like the journal itself, the question of what to do with them is deeply personal—and well worth contemplating.” Suleika Jaouad on making a plan for what becomes of your private writings, and who may be impacted by your choice.
ECHOES ACROSS TIME
When she was growing up, Massachusetts–based personal historian Marjorie Turner Hollman keenly felt the absence of her paternal grandfather. A trip to the Grand Canyon as an adult connected her to “Grampy” in surprising ways.
Media recommendations for personal history fans
BOOKS OF DELIGHT
There are all kinds of autobiographical writing, but oh how I love Ross Gay’s meandering yet distinct essays that, like the titles of his books promise, anticipate and deliver joy. His latest, Inciting Joy, came out October 25.
INTROSPECTIVE ACTOR & PHILANTHROPIST
“With all other people, some things were possible, but not everything. For us, the promise of everything was there from the beginning,” Paul Newman says of Joanne Woodward in this brief excerpt from his new memoir.
WITNESS
Last week I reviewed “Survivors: Faces of the Holocaust,” an exhibition showcasing 75 large-scale portraits taken by photographer Martin Schoeller to mark the 75th anniversary of the Liberation of Auschwitz in 2020.
‘FROM WHERE THEY STOOD’
A handful of prisoners in WWII camps risked their lives to take clandestine photographs and document the hell the Nazis were hiding from the world. The film From Where They Stood attempts to unearth the circumstances and the stories behind their photographs:
...and a few more links
Seeking advice: “Is it okay that my husband keeps mementos of his former love?”
Precious memories: 8 refugees share the things they brought to remind them of home.
“Dark Terrorism: an Unexpected Prisoner of War, Part 1” is a lovely example of compelling family history writing.
Research shows positive and negative memories are stored in different parts of the brain, and what this means for memory manipulation.
How explosive will Prince Harry’s memoir, due in January, be?
10 physician memoirs that offer inspiring accounts of life in medicine
Eliza Dumais cooks through the journals of Sylvia Plath, “a radical academic with a bend towards baking banana bread.”
Short takes
Exhibit reveals history through personal portraits: “Survivors: Faces of Life after the Holocaust” review
“Survivors: Faces of the Holocaust” will be on display in New York City until the summer of 2023—here’s why you should see the exhibit's powerful photographs.
The monograph of photographs by Martin Schoeller, Survivors: Faces of Life after the Holocaust
On Sunday, September 18, 2022, I attended the opening of an exhibit at The Museum of Jewish Heritage in downtown Manhattan, “Survivors: Faces of Life After the Holocaust.” On view through June 28, 2023, you have ample time to visit—and I suggest that you do.
The exhibition, which showcases 75 large-scale portraits taken by renowned photographer Martin Schoeller, originated at Israel’s Yad Vashem to mark the 75th anniversary of the Liberation of Auschwitz in 2020.
Schoeller photographed these Holocaust survivors and created a short film documenting the process. The New York exhibition includes the entire body of work including the film, brief biographies, and quotes from the sitters.
In an Instagram post that coincided with the original release of the portrait series, Schoeller wrote, “The Survivors in this series, having endured the most appalling campaign of hatred in modern times, stand in for all of the wronged and aggrieved people of the world. And, in their spirit of generosity and warmth, they offer an inspiring testament to the best of what we can be.”
Click through to that post and those that immediately follow it to see many of the portraits included in both the exhibit and the monograph available for purchase.
The poetry of photographic storytelling
Henry Greenspan, whose book On Listening to Holocaust Survivors: Recounting and Life History, approaches the idea of inviting and listening to a survivor’s testimony as an ongoing conversation. He “shows us the ways survivors do ‘make stories’ for the ‘not-story’ they remember. Just as important, he shows us the ways they are not able to do so,” reads the book jacket.
Why quote this book here? Because no testimony is a complete story. No recounting of an individual’s Holocaust experience can be considered representative of history. And what survivors cannot say—what they deem will be ‘unhearable’ by listeners, what they cannot find words to describe—tells as much of their story as the words they have chosen to convey.
A former client of mine—a man who survived Camp Les Mille in France, and whose oral history now resides in the museum housed there—told me of his experiences at length. After an extended silence, he said, “A poem would be best. Things left unsaid that are unsayable. Allusions. Maybe that is what’s needed. But I am not a poet, so there are some things I cannot tell you.”
All this, I suppose, is prelude to my observation that Martin Schoeller’s photographs in this exhibition are poetry: individual portraits as stanzas, lines, that say a great deal—but taken together, all together, they form a visual poem that can only allude to the magnitude of the tragedy, the miracle of resilience, and the humanity and power of bearing witness.
And that is why I implore you to visit—for the juxtaposition of these 75 images in the rotunda, so tightly displayed and so imposing in stature, so gloriously alive and so undeniably affecting…and for the individuals whose faces, and whose stories, are represented therein.
Learn more about “Survivors: Faces of Life After the Holocaust”
Find details about visiting the exhibition, “Survivors: Faces of Life After the Holocaust” at The Museum of Jewish Heritage in New York City.
Scroll down to posts dated August 24, 2020, on Martin Schoeller’s Instagram feed to encounter some of the personal portraits taken for this project.
Purchase Martin Schoeller’s monograph (a stunning book I bought at the museum): “Presented close-up and larger-than-life, every feature of Martin Schoeller’s subjects provides us with a piece of personal and collective history: their faces observe us, their gazes hold us. The lines they bear evidence horrors endured, as well as the triumph of their survival and building their lives anew.”
Browse some of the photographer’s other work, including his signature close-ups of celebrities and other cultural icons and provocative series of homeless individuals and death row exonerees.
Watch a recording of the opening-day Q&A between photographer Martin Schoeller and Sara Softness, the curator of special projects at The Museum of Jewish Heritage; this recording also includes a clip from the moving behind-the-scenes video that accompanies the in-person exhibition.
Life Story Links: October 18, 2022
This week’s curated roundup has thoughtful pieces about experimenting with form in your life writing, as well as memoir and film recs and family history tips.
“Even before we consciously know what a story is, we are gathering material for the self-defining story we will someday compose.”
—Dan P. McAdams, Ph.D.
Vintage photo of children in costume on Halloween in New York City, taken between 1940-1979 by Morris Huberland, courtesy of the Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs: Photography Collection, The New York Public Library Digital Collections.
Autobiographical media to check out
HOLD THE ONIONS
“Food is home. And if you talk about it the smell comes to you and home comes back,” said Tova Friedman, an 84-year-old survivor of Auschwitz whose recipes are included in Honey Cake and Latkes: Recipes from the Old World by the Auschwitz-Birkenau Survivors.
“THE STORIES WE TELL”
“At some point, I realized I was writing a story—my story. The bits and pieces that shape who I am. It was messy and winding and beautiful, and graciously revealed about a million wonders. Some of it broke my heart—and some of it pieced it back together.” Joanna Gaines is releasing her first solo memoir in November.
“I WANTED TO BOTTLE HIM UP”
Filmmaker Oni Timoner thought she was creating a home movie…until it became the most important story of her life. This film, Last Flight Home, despite this mixed review, is at the top of my must-see list (it’s now playing in theaters):
Writing outside the box
GENRE BENDING
“If you want to write a memoir without writing a memoir, go ahead and call it something else. Let other people argue about it. Arguing with yourself or the dead will get you nowhere,” Elizabeth McCracken writes in her new fictionalized memoir.
CONTAINERS FOR OUR STORIES
“Experimenting with storytelling forms can introduce you to compelling, layered ways of telling your stories,” Vanessa Mártir writes in this introduction to three new, affordable virtual “Writing Our Lives” classes.
Family history storytelling
HOW TO PRESERVE YOUR FAMILY ARCHIVE
“Everyone started realizing how precious these memories are and, if they don’t pass them down, we will lose them.... I started asking questions during our monthly family Zoom calls and it opened Pandora’s box.”
NEARLY ‘ERASED BY HISTORY’
“Connecting descendants to their ancestors involves detective work: collecting oral histories from family members and local elders; tracking death certificates; studying property maps and deeds; and combing spotty and unforgiving records.” African Americans search for lost graves.
CUSTODIANS OF MEMORY
Last week I shared three ways to leave a personal legacy that has a positive impact on our loved ones; I view this as both a responsibility we bear and a gift we can give.
First person reads worth your time
FRIDAYS AT THE BEAUTY PARLOR
This personal essay about her mother’s salon routine—“a “weekly commitment to beauty,...a sacred form of worship”—is an example that the best autobiographical writing often comes at things from a surprising angle.
ON HIS CHILDHOOD MIGRATION
“From up the river, we see two boats approaching. They’re identical to ours: no canopy, filled with people, and big red gasoline barrels near the back.” Read an excerpt from the recently released Solito by Javier Zamora.
...and a few more links
Registration for RootsTech 2023—both the in-person and virtual events—is open now.
A decade after Hurricane Sandy, volunteer historians restore a Queens, New York, neighborhood's lost memories.
This month from the Biographers Guild of Greater New York: Writing your memoir: DIY vs. hiring an expert
Short takes
Leave a legacy that is a blessing to your descendants
Your legacy is more than the assets you leave behind—much more. Here, three ways to leave a personal legacy that has a positive impact on your loved ones.
Happy memories. An example of a life well lived. A model of resilience. A set of values to guide one’s choices. An inheritance of service to others. Of gratitude. Faith. Love.
These are the things of a meaningful legacy.
For your legacy is more than merely the finances and property you leave behind. So much more, in fact. Your legacy is not something you leave for your family and friends; your legacy is something you leave in them.
3 ways to leave a meaningful legacy
This isn’t a blueprint for your life, just a few suggestions for leaving a legacy that has a positive impact on the loved ones you leave behind.
“Thoughtful focus on legacy not only brings meaning and context to our daily lives, but it also allows us to create and pass down a rich, multi-dimensional view of our lives to future generations,” my personal history colleague Clémence Scouten has written. I couldn’t have said it better!
So, here are three ways you can begin to preserve your legacy for those you love:
1 - Curate the stuff of your life now, so they don’t have to do it later.
Going through my mother’s belongings after she died was one of the hardest things I have ever done. Virtually everything I touched in her home held memories, and the weighty decision of what to keep and what to get rid of overwhelmed me in my grief. I was thoughtful (some might say overly thoughtful) about these decisions, but what if your descendants don’t have the time or inclination to be so discerning when the time comes to go through your stuff?
Make it easy for them:
Purge things from your closets and storage rooms that you don’t use (a gift to yourself now, too—you’ll feel lighter, I promise!).
Organize and digitize old photographs and mementos. There are professionals who can help with this, if it seems like too much; reach out and I can refer someone to you in you area.
Photograph heirlooms and write up their stories on an index card attached to the back of each print: How old is it? Who did it belong to before you? Why is it special? (And remember, an heirloom is such because you say it is, not because it would sell well in an antique store—that well-loved stuffy your son clung to as a baby or your mom’s grease-stained, handwritten recipes are as heirloom-worthy as a string of pearls!).
Consider getting rid of “heirlooms” that either don’t bring you joy or that make you feel heavy or resentful. That rifle used by your Confederate ancestor in the Civil War? If it makes you feel bad, you don’t have to hold onto it; photograph it, write its story, then pass it on to a museum or other institution that can honor its history in context. Or that bulky piece of furniture that has been in your family for generations but that has no place in your home? Maybe refinish it, or ask your kids now if they like it—if so, sure, save it for them; but if they say ‘no,’ don’t hold onto it out of obligation, and don’t pass that sense of obligation (and guilt) onto them!
2 - Preserve your stories to inspire and guide them.
Have you ever wished you knew more about your grandparents’ lives? Heck, how about your parents’ lives? Be a good steward of your own family history and get those stories down! You have many choices for how to preserve your personal history:
Write your life stories. If you enjoy writing and have the time, by all means consider writing your memoir. Find resources for how to get started writing your life here.
Speak—and record—your stories. For many people, it’s easier to tell their stories out loud than to write them. Consider using some family history questions to guide you in your storytelling, or ask a family member to sit and interview you (having a compassionate and curious listener is incredibly helpful in eliciting meaningful stories). Remember: Hit “record” on your smart phone app to ensure you have captured everything. Find a helpful step-by-step guide to how to record your life stories here.
Hire a personal historian to help capture your legacy. There are those of us, like me, who specialize in turning the materials from our interviews into heirloom books; and there are colleagues of mine who produce video biographies or even audio snippets of your life. Why hire a professional? Perhaps you want to ensure the highest standards of your project, or maybe you are simply overwhelmed by the idea of where to even start, no less finish, such an endeavor. Or maybe you recognize that having someone to receive your stories—to bear witness, to engage with—can be invaluable. As Mark Yaconelli writes, “Each of us wants to catch the birdsong of our own life, but often we need a listener to score the melody, to sing it back to us, to help us whistle forth our own merry tune.” Amen.
3 - Live a life well-lived.
There are entire books, podcasts, and films made about how exactly to live a life well-lived, so I am certainly not going to sum up this idea here in a few words. I will say this, though:
Live with intention. Follow the path that feels authentic and right to you. And please, be gentle with yourself. You don’t want to live to create a legacy, of course, but remember that the WAY you live your life will be your legacy.
In closing, I would like to leave you with a few words from Rabbi Steve Leder, whose book For You When I Am Gone: Twenty Essential Questions to Tell a Life Story I highly recommend. He writes, “Let us leave words for those we love in order that we may journey with them long after we are gone, and let it not take imminent death for us to find those words and craft a more meaningful legacy.”
And: “We cannot learn from a story no one has ever told us.”
So, tell yours, won’t you?
Life Story Links: October 4, 2022
Curated just for you: Recent stories on the craft of life writing, memories held in objects, legacy building, new memoir, and honoring loved ones after death.
“Clearly, the most joyous outcome of the life review process is that you really do treat your past as history, you appreciate your triumphs, and the misery becomes part of the context of your life, not the focus.”
—Linda Feldman
Vintage postcard depicting the “Temple de Thésée, Athènes,” courtesy of the Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs: Picture Collection, The New York Public Library Digital Collections.
Aftermath
RELEASE
“Nowhere in the five boroughs was distant enough: If the subway could get me there, I might wake one night from an Ambien-induced sleep to find myself stabbing Mom repeatedly.” Rachel Cline’s naked essay in Dorothy Parker’s Ashes.
ABUELA’S STORIES
“When I’m writing, I close my eyes and my grandmother’s voice comes to me: ‘Each one of us is responsible for keeping history alive.’ ” Armando Lucas Correa’s grandmother’s stories about Cuba inspired him to write.
LOSS, GRIEF, LEGACY
While packing up the apartment of his late mother, Gloria Vanderbilt, journalist Anderson Cooper begins recording his experiences. In the resulting podcast, he explores how we find meaning in the things our loved ones leave behind, how we navigate grief, and how to live on after loss—with laughter, and with love. Here’s a preview:“
Words last: A kind of legacy
“AS LONG AS YOU READ US, WE’RE NOT DEAD”
As author Terry Pratchett’s dementia became prohibitive, his assistant’s role grew to amanuensis, to “keeper of the anecdotes,” and he finished the biographical book that Pratchett had begun, A Life With Footnotes.
“WOMAN WITHOUT SHAME”
“I wanted to understand my father, a man who served in the Second World War without understanding or speaking English. If you don’t write a story like that down, it’ll be like it never happened. He doesn’t have Ken Burns trying to tell his story.” Sandra Cisneros, who calls Studs Terkel her ‘literary ancestor,’ in conversation.
LETTING THE STORY MARINATE
“For [my new memoir], Beautiful Country, I spent three years (and one might say, most of my life) thinking about the book, researching through my diary and retracing my steps, and processing how I wanted to write it.”
The stuff of memories
SARTORIAL STORIES
“Most of the clothes I’ve saved in my closet cannot be recycled physically; they hang there as aide-mémoire to a life.” Julia Reed on the memories woven into well-worn clothes.
THE TRAPPER KEEPER GENERATION
“When I was interviewing people about their school supplies, I was really asking how they felt about themselves during their vulnerable adolescence.” An iconic binder elicits strong memories and visceral responses for these writers.
UNIVERSITY ARCHIVE
“Lucky for us, Hemingway was a pack rat. He saved everything from bullfight tickets and bar bills to a list of rejected story titles written on a piece of cardboard.” A new collection at Penn State provides insight into the author’s writing process and his personal life from childhood onward.
Crafting our stories
WRITE YOUR LIFE
Last week I shared an iterative life writing prompt that gets your pen moving and delivers a trove of future ideas for your memoir. Bonus: It’s a fun one!
“EVERYONE’S GOT A STORY IN THEM”
“Many of us regret not asking our parents and grandparents more about their lives while we had the chance, but I’ve yet to come across anyone who has regretted writing their story.” The Guardian reports on a boom in the personal history industry.
AN INTENTIONAL JOURNEY
“Writing about myself and reading what I wrote to strangers changed me. Or, did it reveal me?” Barbara McCarthy on how taking a guided autobiography course was a significant turning point in her life.
UNEXPECTED TEACHERS
“Those early lessons I got on craft—from likely and unlikely sources—have stayed with me through every essay, every editing job, every student manuscript, and through to writing my memoir.”
...and a few more links
Pieces of history: Urgent effort to preserve thousands of pairs of children’s shoes at Auschwitz
Solito is a personal story of immigration that sheds light on the universal.
A glimpse at early Cormac McCarthy interviews that were recently discovered.
Two new grief-tinged memoirs of male platonic love and loss.
Search for a Hebrew cookbook was “part of a lifetime of connecting with his roots through food.”
Short takes
Dawn Roode’s curated roundup for the week of Sept. 23, 2026, is overflowing with recent reads on memoir, life story writing, and family history preservation.