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Life Story Links: July 11, 2023
This week’s curated roundup includes inspiring first-person stories, lots on documenting our histories (in letters, on fabric, in recorded conversations) & more.
“Words can resonate though generations for all of us. That's one reason why it’s important that we embrace them.”
—Anna Quindlen
Vintage poster produced by the Work Projects Administration; image courtesy of the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, Digital Collection. The posters were designed to publicize exhibits, community activities, theatrical productions, and health and educational programs in seventeen states and the District of Columbia between 1936 to 1943.
First person reads worth your time
‘MEMORY IS SLIPPERY’
“I am almost always the main character in my stories of my parents’ music,” Keziah Weir writes in this piece about why we become who we are, and how artistic callings shift across generations.
SLICE OF LIFE
If you’re looking for inspiration for well-crafted, compelling first person storytelling, the Modern Love column in the NYT delivers regularly. “How My Father and I Drew a New Life” is a personal essay in this vein.
MINI MONOLOGUE ON MOTHERHOOD
“The story and memory scattered down the hall, again. You lost it. Your urgent need to document paralyzes you, shames you. You want it so bad, you don’t do it.”
THE WOMAN BEHIND THE WORDS
“I was agonizing over the deep feeling that I had tried to write a very honest novel. Bracingly so…. All that honest work and I was about to be dishonest about what I looked like?”
Current books of interest
MEMOIR WITH A TWIST
Tom Brokaw’s new book, Never Give Up: A Prairie Family’s Story, “is a hybrid of memoir and history, a kind of love letter to his parents and to the hardworking people of the Plains who shared a ‘never give up’ outlook.”
TRUTH IN FICTION
Have you ever thought about using your life experiences to inform a novel rather than a memoir? Here’s a new book that can help you discover effective ways to craft fiction through personal memories.
Documenting our histories
STUNNING STITCHED MEMORIES
“Some people enjoy…[using] photography or a sketchbook to capture their travel memories. But embroidery artist Maria Zamyatina uses a needle and thread to make beautiful embroidered keepsakes of her trips.”
A FAMILY HISTORY IN LETTERS
“This is my proudest creation. An archived collection of my father’s letters to his mother during his time in the Marines. Over 100 pages of his words and his handwriting and I could not love it more.”
A STEP-BY-STEP PLAN
As a professional personal historian, I help a lot of people create tribute books to surprise loved ones. Recently I shared a primer on how people who want to go the DIY route can make their own milestone birthday tribute books.
JOURNEY THROUGH THEIR JOURNALS
“Alongside their duties as presidents, these forward-thinking leaders turned to their personal journals, recording their ideas, theories, and reflections.”
CARETAKER, VOLUNTEER ARCHIVIST
“They are our fragile, flammable legacy, and we can lay our hands on them only because of the work of people like Paul Fasana,” the librarian who was instrumental in preserving hundreds of thousands of artifacts of queer history.
IN CONVERSATION WITH A GENEALOGIST
“I have two children that we adopted at birth, and if their descendants ever put together their family trees, are they going to bypass me because I’m not a DNA relative? Or are they going to be more inclusive and do family history, not just DNA genealogy?” Listen in to this interesting conversation on LGBTQ family history:
Things we leave behind
A WAY THROUGH GRIEF
“The gift of these pictures and letters allows me to explore the memories she had but didn't think to share, and gives me the opportunity to keep learning more about her, even without her voice telling the tales.”
ROYAL DIARIES
“Tall Paul is the legacy man—the keeper of the Queen's secrets.” Could Queen Elizabeth II’s diaries ever be published?—and why her Page of the Backstairs gets to make that call.
...and a few more links
Memoir review: If This Were Fiction: A Love Story In Essays by Jill Christman
Curious about what a family history story by ChatGPT would look like?
Cool offering: The Boston Public Library loans oral history backpacks to its patrons.
A peek inside Artists in Residence: Downtown New York in the 1970s by Brett Sokol
Short takes
Want to use your life story to inform your fiction?
This new book by Ruta Sepetys, You: The Story, is a great tool for those who want to use their own life experiences to inform their fiction writing.
This new book from Ruth Sepetys, You: The Story, is a great resource for anyone who wants to write fiction informed by their own life experiences.
What if you don't want to write a memoir, but you know that stories from your life are compelling? What if you’re rereading your journal one night only to discover that the twists and turns in those pages read like a movie script? Maybe it's time to consider using your life experiences to inform a fictional book.
Why not? Transforming scenes from your life into scenes in a novel is a tried-and-true way to infuse a fictional account with an underlying truth that readers can relate to.
In her recent book You: The Story (Viking, 2023), Ruta Sepetys suggests you put a piece of yourself into your fiction: “When you do, you'll pull the reader to the page and share something resonant and meaningful that will keep them there.”
But how? I recommend you begin by picking up a copy of Sepetys’s book, subtitled “A Writer's Guide to Craft through Memory.” While I was drawn to it for the snippets of wisdom applicable to personal historians and memoirists, I soon realized it's a better resource for those who want to be inspired by their life, not depict it directly on paper.
3 ways you'll learn to effectively write from your life
You'll have a library of creative writing prompts at your fingertips.
Each chapter of You: The Story concludes with a handy recap (in easy-to-scan bullet points) as well as a series of writing prompts aimed to help you with that chapter's premise. Working on writing genuine-sounding dialogue? There are prompts for that. How about creating a setting that's immersive, believable? That, too.
Some of the suggestions may seem obvious, but I would argue that they will only seem so in retrospect. Sepetys encourages you to brainstorm a list of settings from your own life, for instance—addresses (including corresponding time periods and people around you) as well as memories you associate with each place. It's through detail, after all, that dialogue and setting and characters come to life. So detail is what she (and you) are after.
Here's an example of a writing prompt from the chapter called “Setting”:
Recall a time when you thought, What in the world am I doing here? Write for ten minutes about that time. Describe the setting and your feelings there.
Note that it's not just the color of the walls or the overarching smell of a place, it's also the way the place made you feel. Throughout the book the author implores you to consider, at every turn: How do these things from YOUR life impact your fictional characters? Mine your life for details, then fold them into your imaginative narrative.
You'll learn how to turn real people into characters.
Putting people you know into your book is generally a no-no (while it’s unlikely, lawsuits have even been brought by individuals who have recognized themselves in a story and took umbrage at their portrayal). Just about every fictional character, though, is an amalgamation of people we have come across in our lives. You want a reader to identify with a character—to feel like they recognize this person, whether in themselves or in someone they know—and the best way to do that is to root them in some reality.
Sepetys offers up an array of ways to do this, from tapping into archetypes and personality quirks to identifying a character's personal rhythms and rendering their nuances. She explores how you can create believable characters inspired by your life in three chapters—“Character Development,” “Voice,” and “Dialogue”—and it is here I think she provides the most value through concrete examples, instructive writing prompts, and helpful tips.
“Your true voice is layered deep within your life experience and your memories,” she writes. “It's the voice of your old diary, the voice of your desperation, and sometimes the voice you hope no one else will hear.”
You'll discover even more reasons to preserve your memories.
If you're here on this site, I'm fairly confident you're already a memory-keeper of one kind or another. I've been one since I was a child (really). And still I felt inspired by Sepetys’s words.
“Memories are like leaves,” she writes. “They fade, fall, and scatter beneath the slightest sigh of wind. So for now, think of ways to press them between wax paper and preserve them for one quiet day in the future.” One day when you might be in need of sensory details to bring a character to life. One day when you might need a glimpse of the you that you were 10 years ago. One day when your son or daughter asks you to recall something that has long since blown away on the breeze.
Whether you choose to tap into your life by writing a personal memoir or a fictional account, I encourage you to look inward and write what you find. As Sepetys says, “Work with your stories. Water them with your blood and tears and laughter. The world needs them.”
Your life is a story.
One of my favorite bits of wisdom from Ruta Sepetys’s book applies whether you are turning your life stories into fiction or nonfiction:
“Use your own best judgment about which memories you might be able to responsibly dig through and which ones you should avoid. Protect your head and your heart. Always.”
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.
The best gift for a milestone birthday? A tribute book filled with love!
Here’s how to make a tribute book for their milestone birthday—your step-by-step guide to the most unique, thoughtful gift you can give someone you love!
Have you ever wondered how to make a tribute book for a loved one’s milestone birthday? Keep reading for a step-by-step plan (plus some tips for writing the best tributes ever!).
Early on at Modern Heirloom Books, creating tribute books in honor of deceased loved ones became a bit of a specialty of mine (inspired by the first book I created memorializing my own mom). I soon realized, though, that this same format could be used to honor living family members—and what better occasion than for a milestone birthday?
Whether you call them birthday books, memory books, or tribute books, the idea is to gather photos of and stories about the gift recipient. Once designed and printed, these one-of-a-kind books make a most meaningful (surprise!) birthday gift. But where to begin?
The very notion of having to put all these disparate pieces together can stop some people from ever undertaking a birthday tribute book—but I’ve got you covered. What follows are the essential steps to create the best tribute book as a unique, sure-to-be-treasured gift for a 40th, 50th, 60th, 70th, 80th, 90th (you get the idea!) birthday.
Oh, and one more thing: It’s key to start this process early, both so you are not feeling the pressure of a last-minute rush to finish and so you can have a cushion should any delays occur at the printer. How much time will you need? My best guess is about four months from start to finish.
1 . Consider who will contribute.
Your first order of business is to create a list of everyone you would like to participate. Think about family members, friends (new and old), work colleagues, sports teammates—anyone who knows and loves the birthday celebrant.
2. Designate a way for people to contribute.
How will you invite participants to share their stories? You may have a dedicated email address for receiving tributes and photos; or create a private web page or Dropbox folder for people to easily upload their materials, for instance. It’s handy to have a checklist of all contributors (I create this in a Google spreadsheet) so you can check each person off as their files come to you; label columns as
NAME
TRIBUTE RECEIVED
TRIBUTE EDITED
PHOTO(S) RECEIVED
PHOTO RESOLUTION CHECKED
NOTES.
3. Gather photos of the birthday celebrant.
I generally recommend including 1-3 photos per tribute, on average. That may mean that some friends or colleagues, for instance, have no photos, while close family members may have a handful extra. Curation is key: Ask for images that convey the subject’s most enduring traits, that capture happy times or vivid moments from their life; and that illustrate stories you (or others) plan to write about them. Include photos from different stages of their life, too—from childhood through old age—so you show their personality and experiences but do not overwhelm. And ideally, you’ll want to gather photos of each storyteller (the writers of the tributes) with the recipient whenever possible! The pictures should complement the stories, not detract from them. Technical tip: Source only high-resolution images—that means 300 dpi for print—and have print photos professionally scanned (it’s worth going the extra mile here else risk being disappointed with your final book).
4. Capture stories about your loved one.
It’s time to start writing your birthday tribute, and to send those invitations out inviting others to share, too (see Step No. 2, above). Before beginning, spend five minutes jotting down all the things about the person that make you smile, laugh, or feel strongly—include phrases about their traits, sure, but focus on specific experiences with them. You may want to use a few of the photos you gathered to stir your memories. Another foolproof way to get your stories flowing: Converse with a mutual friend or family member about the subject. One story will remind you of another, and you’ll undoubtedly be inspired—so either hit “record” during your conversation or have a laptop or notebook handy to write immediately afterwards.
5. Put it all together in a book.
In professional bookmaking parlance, we call this the production part of your project: editing, designing, and producing print-ready files; sourcing and working with a printer; and ensuring quality along the way. There are some DIY options out there—scrapbooking and the free software Bookwright among them—and I encourage you to give this a go if you have some creative experience and are a solid project manager. Remember, though: No one expects you to become a pro at this overnight, and there’s a lot to juggle to put a tribute book such as this together; so consider hiring a pro for this step to make your life easier, and to ensure you are thrilled with the book that is ultimately created. (Reach out if you'd like to talk about working together.)
6. Bonus tip: Set deadlines for each step!
Without deadlines, I doubt your project will get finished. Since you are creating this book for a milestone birthday, your deadlines are clear—work backwards from the date the books are needed (either their exact birthday or the date of a party in their honor). Here is a suggested timeline:
8 weeks before birthday:
Finalize list of contributors.
Record/confirm their email addresses or phone numbers (however you will communicate with them about their contributions).
Create checklist of contributors per Step No. 2 above.
Invite contributors to send their tributes and photos for the birthday book.
6 weeks before birthday:
Initial deadline for tributes and photos due to you (you can extend by a few days here or there for stragglers if necessary)
5 weeks before deadline:
Edit and design the tributes into a coherent, beautiful book.
4 weeks before deadline:
Order book from printer. (Note: This timeframe should be based on the estimated turnaround time from your specific printer. I always, always allot at least one full week extra to account for mail delays or production snafus.)
Setting clear deadlines such as this will not only lend your project a sense of urgency, it will give you a way to stay accountable—and ultimately get everything done!
The best tributes honor the birthday celebrant with specific stories of shared experiences and special times. Selecting key quotes to design larger on the page ensures that even if they’re just flipping through their gift, they will encounter meaningful notes along the way!
Ideas for making a birthday celebrant feel special
Use the prompt “remember the time...” to offer up:
Something ridiculous you did together that still makes you laugh (or, ahem, blush)!
A memory from your childhood that they may have forgotten.
That time you traveled together...or cooked together, messed up together, sang karaoke together, considered doing something daring together—you get the idea!
Or tell them a story that might surprise them, perhaps about:
Something seemingly insignificant that they did (for you or for another) that made a major impact on you.
Advice they gave that you took to heart.
Something they said off the cuff that resonated deeply.
Always be specific and offer up stories and memories that will make the gift recipient smile and, most importantly, feel deeply.
Write the way you speak and I guarantee your story will turn out beautifully. (If the notion of writing truly paralyzes you, use the voice recorder app on your smart phone to talk about your memories, then you can transcribe it later.) Allow yourself to be vulnerable, and use the list you brainstormed above to inform the tribute you are writing.
Good luck with this most meaningful project, and congratulations on taking the first step to creating the most unique and special gift for your loved one’s milestone birthday!
Life Story Links: June 20, 2023
This week's roundup for family historians and life writers includes oral history interview tips, thoughts on intergenerational trauma, recent memoir reviews.
“I believe that any experience, whatever its nature, has the inalienable right to be chronicled. There is no such thing as a lesser truth.”
—Annie Ernaux
Vintage poster produced by the Work Projects Administration in 1937 with artwork by Jack Rivolta; image courtesy of the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, Digital Collection. The posters were designed to publicize exhibits, community activities, theatrical productions, and health and educational programs in seventeen states and the District of Columbia between 1936 to 1943.
Our stories, our selves?
REMEMBERING—AND FORGETTING—THE HIJACKING
“My father told me often that he hoped to live long enough to read my memoir,” Martha Hodes explains before detailing why, in fact, she didn’t want him to read it.
PHILOSOPHIZING THE STORIES OF US
“What is the connection between the development of a sense of the self and a narrative of the self? How does the question of who you are or who I am become a question of storytelling? Is the self a story?”
INTERGENERATIONAL TRAUMA
Rachel Zimmerman investigates new research into how “the environmental wounds inflicted on one generation may be transmitted to the next” in experiences as diverse as childhood abuse, the Holocaust, and slavery.
Papers of the past
THE ART OF LETTER WRITING
“You may find your handwritten words on a piece of paper ordinary today, but that same piece of paper, three or four generations later, will become an emotional property,” Narendra Modi, prime minister of India, recently said.
JOURNALS: TO SAVE OR NOT TO SAVE?
I’ve often fallen off the journal-writing bandwagon because I get mired in thoughts about who will read my (vulnerable, extemporaneous) words when I am gone. Last week I deliberated the pros and cons of saving one’s diaries.
CELEBRATING GRANDMOTHERS
Cuban American women are sharing their abuelas’ cooking and life lessons in the digital sphere, helping these grandmothers fulfill the role of “keeper of the family legend.”
Pop annals
PHOTO STORY
“An excerpt from the new book White House by the Sea: A Century of the Kennedys at Hyannis Port offers a rare glimpse into Jackie Kennedy’s early years on Cape Cod.”
1964 TIME CAPSULE
When an archivist unearthed a stash of photos taken by Paul McCartney at the height of Beatlemania, he got to revisit memories blurred by the whirlwind of the time. Now, those photos and McCartney’s reflections are in a book:
HOW TO INTERVIEW MUSICIANS
“Designate a small number of must-ask questions—the quotes you have to get for your story—and promise yourself you’ll ask them at some point. With that established, treat your interview like a conversation.”
...and a few more links
Short takes
What should I do with my journals?
Have you ever thought about what will happen to your diaries—who will read them, how you may one day use them? Join me as I consider this profound question.
So many factors come into play when considering whether to save or destroy your personal journals. What’s your thinking?
As an off-and-on journaler since young adulthood, there are two main things that stop me from being consistent with my journaling: finding time, and wondering what on earth I should do with them after they are written.
The first challenge—time—is fairly easily addressable. I have tried gratitude journals or other short memory-keeping prompts that can be completed in just 10 to 15 minutes with great success. I also firmly believe that we make time for what matters to us—so if keeping a diary can make its way atop your priority list, chances are you can squeeze it into even the busiest schedule.
But that second question troubles me more.
The case for destroying my journals upon completion?
A personal journal has value, in my opinion, because it is a place where we can be our unfettered selves—free from the constraints of worrying about what other people will think, or worrying about the quality of that writing. A diary is a place to be vulnerable, even to work out problems through the very act of writing about them.
Are they something I envision other people reading? No.
At times I have formatted my journal as an ongoing correspondence with my deceased mom. It helps orient me, feel like I am speaking to someone rather than sending messages out into the ether, and imagine a compassionate soul receiving my words. Perhaps if she were still alive I could envision her actually reading them. But, well, I wouldn’t want anyone else to read them.
Which poses a dilemma if I ever want to use those diaries as a touchstone for future memoir writing, as so many life writers do (and as I often recommend!). Because if I hold onto them, someone else may find them. If I hold onto them, someone else will certainly discover them when I am gone.
Let me be clear: It’s not like I am writing anything awful in those journals. On the contrary, the types of things I share—the overwrought emotions and unprocessed (often reactionary) thoughts—are likely universal in many ways. But they’re not necessarily how I want to be remembered. It’s why at some point in my 30s I destroyed my diaries from my teen years (I am ashamed now to say how dreadfully embarrassed I felt upon rereading them as an adult—I hadn’t yet learned to be compassionate with my former selves). I am still not even sure if I am happy or regretful of that decision to get rid of those angsty handwritten pages.
In the introduction to A Writer’s Diary, the collected journals of Virginia Woolf, Woolf’s husband writes:
“At the best and even unexpurgated, diaries give a distorted or one-sided portrait of the writer, because, as Virginia Woolf herself remarks somewhere in these diaries, one gets into the habit of recording one particular kind of mood—irritation or misery, say—and of not writing one’s diary when one is feeling the opposite. The portrait is therefore from the start unbalanced…”
…a fairly adequate description of why I don’t intend my diaries to be read by anyone other than me.
When I ponder the question of whether to save or destroy my journals, though, I sometimes come to the conclusion that I should save them, but that I should write with an audience of my child or future descendants in mind. That’s certainly what some famous diarists have done. But, as Joan Didion wrote in the essay “On Keeping a Notebook”:
“…our notebooks give us away, for however dutifully we record what we see around us, the common denominator of all we see is always, transparently, shamelessly, the implacable ‘I.’ We are not talking here about the kind of notebook that is patently for public consumption, a structural conceit for binding together a series of graceful pensées; we are talking about something private, about bits of the mind’s string too short to use, an indiscriminate and erratic assemblage with meaning only for its maker.”
Ah, so much fodder for thought, and yet I reach no conclusions—“to save or to destroy my journals” still exists as an unanswered question for me.
Where do you stand on this?
The case for saving our journals
Of the many reasons one might have for keeping a journal, here are a few that, in my opinion, merit their safekeeping:
keeping a journal as an autobiographical record
Whether as a tool for future memoir writing or as a piece of your legacy you pass down to loved ones as is, a journal can be an important piece of your personal history to preserve. Read this post for a specific writing prompt that will yield fodder for your autobiographical writing.
keeping a journal as a personal record
Such personal writing can be a valuable resource for you to look back on later in life. They can help you to remember important events, to track your progress, and to reflect on your thoughts and feelings. Read a thought-provoking exploration of what it means to write memoir as a tool for self-understanding (“like a good therapist”) in this old New York Times article.
keeping a journal as a source of inspiration
Perhaps you plan to use your journal as a source of inspiration for your writing, art, or music. They can also help you to come up with new ideas for projects or to solve creative problems. Read these thoughtful reflections from The Marginalian by Maria Popova on celebrated writers and their ideas about the creative benefits of keeping a diary (there are, unsurprisingly, conflicting notions on whether or not to keep said diaries!).
Ultimately, the decision of what to do with your journals is up to you. There is no right or wrong answer, and the best option for you will depend on your individual circumstances and preferences. That said, I would absolutely love to hear what you think about this! Please share in the comments—I promise to reply and get a conversation going.
Life Story Links: June 6, 2023
Compelling reads from the past two weeks about uncovering family stories, preserving legacies, writing memoir, and creating meaningful personal history.
“Even the most random memory is retained as a kind of code for emotional information.”
—Pat Schneider
Vintage poster depicting the Old Swedes Church produced by the Work Projects Administration; image courtesy of the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, Digital Collection. The posters were designed to publicize exhibits, community activities, theatrical productions, and health and educational programs in seventeen states and the District of Columbia between 1936 to 1943.
Family legacies
BOXES OF MEMORIES
“Years from now, I will be sitting by a fire, looking through cherished photos I’ve saved, and fondly recalling unforgettable moments and loved ones from the past.” How one woman sorted 30 albums of print photos—and the relief she finally felt!
REUNION GOODIES
Last week I shared some fun and easy ideas for capturing family stories at your next family reunion gathering, including preservation and sharing tips as well as bonus memory-keeping activities.
UNCOVERING FAMILY STORIES
“It was the scene from that drawing, the one I had been thinking about for what felt like my entire childhood, of that little girl on the deck of a ship staring out over the water, that image of hope.” Kori Suzuki interviews his grandmother to shed light on her personal history as a Japanese American during World War II.
DELVING INTO HIS FAMILY HISTORY
The renowned playwright Tom Stoppard speaks about seeing himself in his play Leopoldstadt, about several generations of a Jewish family living in Vienna.
“MEMOIRS FOR EVERYONE”
“What is our legacy? What do we leave behind after we’re gone?” Jeffrey Brown asks in this PBS News Weekend clip on the increasing accessibility of life story books:
Memoirs, biographies, oral history
WHAT’S THE REAL STORY?
“Given that it is about a real person whose words apparently were never written down, can it be a biography, or does it illustrate a truth about biography, that its subjects can only ever offer the illusion of being known?” A new biography of Cleopatra’s daughter—and a Netflix docuseries about Cleopatra—raise questions.
CENTENARIAN WISDOM
“Charlie made an art of living,” David Von Drehle writes in The Book of Charlie, a personal history he wrote about the 102-year-old neighbor who was an engaging teller of tales—and who lived a lot of life across two centuries.
WRITING WHILE WOMAN
The female writers who are the subjects of chapter-length biographies in her memoir, A Life of One’s Own, “supplied [Joanna] Biggs a measure of clarity in mapping a new life for herself; their voices helped her, as a writer, to find a new voice.”
OBAMA ORAL HISTORY PROJECT
“Researchers interviewed 470 Obama administration veterans, critics, activists, and others who were in the thick of major events back then, including Mr. Obama and the first lady, Michelle Obama, amassing a total of 1,100 hours of recordings. Transcripts of the interviews are being released in batches over the next three years.”
On the craft of life writing
ON THE MEMOIR-IN-PIECES
“Edges and joinery. Right-sized gaps. Isn’t that what lies at the heart of a true memoir-in-pieces?” Beth Kephart on the “meta interplay between the living of a life, on the one hand, and the writing of a life, on the other.”
REVEALING HARD TRUTHS
“At our best, memoirists hope it is silence we are breaking, and not another person. At our worst, we create anyway, knowing it will.” Kelly McMasters on the ethics of family memoir.
The stuff of memories
THE FACEBOOK GENERATION
“In the United States, parental authority supersedes a child’s right to privacy, and socially, we’ve normalized sharing information about and images of children that we never would of adults.” Beyond memory-keeping: How posting our children’s lives on social media impacts them.
HEIRLOOMS’ LONG LOST STORIES
“Every single artifact tells such a different story. I actually favor the letters and the diaries more than any other artifacts because they can tell you things that no record ever could.”
FINISHING YOUR FAMILY ARCHIVE
“When we talk about what to leave behind and what not to leave behind for the next generation, it seems wiser to spend the most time on curating your legacy. Your knick knacks go when you do, but your legacy?” Caroline Guntur on what Swedish death cleaning gets wrong.
PHOTOGRAPHIC EXPLORATION
Through her photography, Arin Yoon says she is able “to tap into my own forgotten memories, conjuring the past, creating new memories, all while exploring my connection to the natural landscape, to my children, and to our past and future selves.”
WHEATON, ILLINOIS EXHIBIT HIGHLIGHTS SOLDIERS’ STORIES
“The items in 65 Years represent the mundane and the momentous, from boots, helmets, and cigarette lighters to heroic patches, medals, and flags. They depict the everyday lives of soldiers while commemorating exceptional lives of service and sacrifice for our country.”
Short takes
3 great ways to capture stories at a family reunion
Family reunions are optimal occasions for gathering family history—and if you go in with a plan, you’ll be able to preserve stories AND have a great time!
What other occasion will you have access to so many branches of your family in one place? Family reunions are optimal times for gathering family history—and if you go in with a plan, you’ll be able to preserve stories AND have a great time!
Family reunions are a great way to create a sense of community and belonging, visit with distant relatives, make new friends and connections, and even to pass down family history and traditions. At your next big familial gathering, why not be intentional about collecting family stories with these ideas for making story preservation fun and easy:
Then, enjoy these tips for ensuring your stories are properly preserved (and shared!) PLUS some bonus ideas for even more family reunion family history activities!
1 - Set up a mobile story recording booth.
Okay, not a booth, necessarily, but an area dedicated to recording family members’ stories is fairly easy to create:
Choose somewhere as quiet as possible (a separate room if your reunion is at least partially indoors, or a picnic table set apart from the group under a shady tree, for example, if the reunion is outside).
Set up a recorder of some kind—it can be an audio recording app on your phone (I recommend using two just in case one has technical difficulties) or a camera atop a tripod set to record video (in which case I recommend having a designated person to mind the camera).
Create a sign-up sheet and encourage as many of your family elders, in particular, to pick a time slot and share some stories! You may wish to create this in advance of the reunion, or else invite people to sign up as they arrive.
Provide a list of a few questions or story prompts to give story sharers ideas of what to talk about, or choose a single theme for all storytellers to stick to (think “Growing up as a Smith,” “Childhood memories,” or “Family food memories”).
You may want to have storytellers share their stories with no audience (in other words, speaking directly to the recording device on their own)—a good option if you or another individual doesn’t want to be tied to this activity all day. However, I find that having an engaged listener helps a storyteller tremendously—so consider having pairs of family members enter your “booth” to swap stories with one another. A great option is to have younger family members interview family elders—a grandchild interviewing a grandparent, for instance, or a younger sibling interviewing their older sibling. You want an interesting dynamic, certainly, but most importantly you want to have a genuinely curious listener asking questions and prompting stories from their partner.
Lastly, create a set of directions—something as simple as:
At the beginning of your recording, introduce yourself: Say your name and spell it out completely.
Say who your parents are and the names of your children, if applicable.
Answer one or two of the following questions with a favorite memory or story from your life [then include a brief list of prompts or questions].
2 - Hire a professional personal historian to conduct short interviews with interested family members.
In this case, you may be following a process similar to that outlined above, but with a professional interviewer collecting oral histories. Going this route allows you to both feel assured your family history is getting recorded and also to relax and enjoy your reunion visiting with relatives.
Please reach out if this is something you are interested in—if you are in the greater New York–New Jersey region, I may be able to assist you; and if you are located elsewhere, I can likely refer you to a colleague I trust closer to your home.
3 - Get the family writing in advance with a fun reunion-day twist.
Invite family members to write one story from their life before the reunion but without putting their name on it. To make it easy and fun, give a few specific writing prompts that they can choose from, as well as a suggested word count. For example—
Write 300-750 words about:
A favorite story from your childhood that makes you smile or feel proud
A story about interacting with one of your parents or grandparents where you learned a lesson or understood something anew
A story about a time you felt loved and special
A story about a time you failed at something (it could be as small as doing poorly on a test or as big as losing a job or making a bad decision) and how you dealt with it
Do NOT sign your name or use names of your family members in your story (instead, say “my mother” or “my sister,” etc.).
To make this writing activity come to life during your family reunion: You, as the organizer of this family story-gathering activity, compile all the stories submitted by family members into a basic book (it can be as simple as a printed Google doc or photocopied pages of their handwritten accounts). Number each contribution clearly. Place this story book in a central location, and invite guests to guess who wrote each entry (you may want to pass out paper and ask them to cast their votes on it; or, if there aren’t too many stories, invite younger members of the family to read them aloud and have everyone yell out their guesses as to who the original author is).
Ensure the stories gathered at your family reunion are preserved.
Whichever approach you take to gathering stories from your extended family, it is critical that you do something to ensure those stories are preserved:
If they were recorded orally, have a plan for transcribing those oral histories (AI transcription services such as Otter.ai have made this easier than ever).
If they were written for the guessing game described above, designate one person to take notes as to the ACTUAL authors of each story, and create a new version of your simple book with all people properly identified in each story.
Make your final project accessible to everyone in the family. These stories are part of their legacy, and may in fact serve as an impetus for future life writing and genealogy research.
Consider adding photos and having your book professionally designed and printed so it becomes a tangible family heirloom that can be passed down to the next generation (and, dare I say, used as a prompt for telling MORE stories at your NEXT family reunion!).
A few more ideas for documenting family history at your family reunion
Ask everyone to share a family recipe (which you can compile into a book or distribute via a shared Google document).
Set up a computer station with the de facto family historian’s Ancestry or Family Search account set up for viewing—and include a pad of paper where extended family members can answer genealogy questions or share memories.
Ask everyone to bring one (or a few) of the oldest family photos in their personal collection to be scanned by a family volunteer—all they need is a smart phone and an app such as Google Photo Scan or Photomyne; just be sure to clearly name the image files with the names of everyone in the photograph and any key details (date, location, etc.). Ideally, all of these photos will be made available to the group via software such as a shared Google Photos album or a service such as Forever or Permanent.org.
Create a shared digital space for everyone to upload photos they took during the reunion (family history in the making!).
Get your free guide of Essential Family History Questions
All the best family history interview questions to capture their (or your!) stories, in a beautiful printable guide
I hope that as you are having fun and strengthening bonds at your next family reunion that you will take some time to proactively record history in the form of memories and stories! Let me know if you have any questions or would like to hire a professional personal historian to guide the story sharing.
Life Story Links: May 23, 2023
This week’s curated roundup is all about memoir, memories, and myth—from how to write (and where to end) your memoir to which new autobiographical work to read.
“To speak incessantly about the wounds or triumphs of I and My Family can get pretty tiresome; the trick is to project one’s experience on the page in such an enhanced, objectified way that it acquires, or merges with, a larger significance.”
—Phillip Lopate
Vintage poster depicting an illustration by Arlington Gregg produced by the Work Projects Administration circa late 1930s; image courtesy of the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, Digital Collection. The posters were designed to publicize exhibits, community activities, theatrical productions, and health and educational programs in seventeen states and the District of Columbia between 1936 to 1943.
Memories, memoir & myth
ON WRITING THE SELF
“If you write a memoir that ends where you thought it would, you’re probably doing something wrong,” Abigail Thomas says in this Q&A about her latest memoir, Still Life at Eighty.
DIPPING INTO THE PAST
Of her early work as a biographer, Anne Berest says, “Listening to the answers [of the people I was interviewing], I learned that every life is a novel for those who are curious enough to look into it.”
SECOND GENERATION SURVIVORS
Jill Sarkozi, a fellow member of The Biographers Guild of Greater New York, wrote this insightful, actionable post about how to preserve your parent’s story if they are a Holocaust survivor.
BUT WAS IT TRUE?
“When I started to rework these [family] stories in my writing, I called what I was doing fiction, but I wasn’t actively trying to make anything up, I was trying to uncover what the humor had kept hidden.” Luis Jaramillo on the unlikely discovery of an old family recipe.
STARS—THEY’RE JUST LIKE US!
“Creating a personal myth allows celebrities to create just that—a myth.” Landon Y. Jones traces the evolution of celebrity memoirs, from Charles Lindbergh to Will Smith.
PUTTING HERSELF IN PERSPECTIVE
“I’m old enough to feel deeply just how universal vulnerabilities tend to be—and to trust that my editors will save me from myself by cutting confessions that venture too far.” Susan Dominus on using first-person narration in her reporting.
ON BEDS AND MEMORIES
Tamzin Merivale recounts all the beds she can remember—including “the bed where [she] woke to the sound of a church choir in Slovenia, holding beauty and mourning together in [her] heart”—and in doing so, traces a life’s trajectory.
INHERITANCE & INTERGENERATIONAL HEALING
How memoirist Dionne Ford (read a review of her memoir here) found healing in the story of her enslaved ancestors and created “space to name and celebrate and mourn members of [her] family”:
REMEMBERING HIS MOTHER
In the new memoir Irma, Terry McDonnell “writes that what passes between a mother and a son is not defined by her love in the moment, but later by the echoes of her motherhood.”
THE FRAGILITY OF OUR DIGITAL “ARCHIVES”
On May 16, Google announced that starting in December 2023, it would delete personal accounts that haven’t been active in over two years. Photos, emails, and docs attached to inactive accounts will all be eradicated as part of the policy.
...and a few more links
New Yorker uses documentary photography to capture family life during the pandemic
nine people share the best life advice they ever got from their mom
Beth Kephart on designing the cover of her upcoming memoir, My Life in Paper: Adventures in Ephemera
an excerpt from A Renaissance of Our Own: A Memoir & Manifesto on Reimagining by Rachel E. Cargle
on succumbing to “ghostitis, that common illness of ghostwriters”
Short takes
Learn about our Write Your Life course, providing memory prompts, writing guidance and a dose of inspiration to anyone who wants to preserve their stories now.