Life Story Links: January 17, 2023
“So what if your story of a small, unremarkable life is read only by you, in some quiet corner, or by one or two people you love and trust to understand? If those are people who can learn from and value it, isn’t that a notable achievement, a valuable audience?”
—Anna Quindlen
Vintage portrait of Dr. and Mrs. Martin Luther King Jr., by Herman Miller, originally appeared in the World Telegram & Sun, 1964, courtesy of Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.
Going deep
CHANNELING SOMEONE ELSE’S VOICE
"Beyond doing the writing, a good ghostwriter also encourages subjects to go beyond what they might say on their own." A look at how ghostwriters craft books in someone else’s voice, without leaving fingerprints.
TO BE CONTINUED
There are a variety of reasons—including traumatic memories—when pausing a personal history interview is the best course of action. Last week I wrote about when it makes sense to honor the silence.
SILENCE—A BETTER OPTION?
Amidst the maelstrom of coverage of Prince Harry’s blockbuster memoir, Spare, this short op-ed by Patti Davis—daughter of Ronald Reagan and author of a book she says she wishes she hadn’t written—stands out.
This and that
PASSING ON INTANGIBLE ASSETS
An ethical will “can be a meaningful component of a comprehensive legacy plan.” Susan Turnbull, a personal legacy advisor in Massachusetts, writes about why estate planners should introduce their clients to such legacy letters.
DEAR READER…
In the latest blog for the Biographers Guild of Greater New York, Anna Brady Marcus offers up six ways to use letters in your memoir projects.
PHOTO ACCOUNTING
From how our photo taking was impacted during the pandemic to how many images the average smartphone user has on their device, these statistics, facts, and predictions around our picture-taking habits are a lot to take in.
The branches of our family trees
FAMILY LORE, NOW DOCUMENTED
On the season premiere of Finding Your Roots, actor Edward Norton learned that Pocahontas is his 12th great-grandmother. You can watch the full episode here.
STRANGER THAN FICTION
Ancestry released survey findings that half of Americans know more about families from their favorite TV shows than their own family tree—and 53% can’t name all four of their grandparents. Watch an episode of their entertaining YouTube series “2 Lies and a Leaf” featuring Modern Family’s Sarah Hyland:
Writers, editors, themselves
RECORDING IT ALL
Allen “Ginsberg’s auto poesy gives us his life not merely as a collection of facts, but as an imminent reality—there for you to judge, worship, reject, envy, study, or imitate as you will.” How the poet’s self-recording sessions informed his work.
“AN EXERCISE IN INTIMATE BIOGRAPHY”
Darryl Pinckney’s memoir of his writing teacher and friend Elizabeth Hardwick “braids together Pinckney’s memories of Hardwick and her circle of New York intellectuals with his own coming-of-age story.”
THE EDITOR WHO EDITED SALINGER
“Writing about this archive is like trying to push the whole career of Gus Lobrano into a day at the office. Have I even mentioned that he was descended from pirates in New Orleans?”
“STILL PICTURES: ON PHOTOGRAPHY AND MEMORY”
“The usually brazen journalist seems intimidated by her past; perhaps thinking it held the power to wound her.” In her new memoir, Janet Malcom “often dances right up to the line of major reckonings, but before she arrives, she shyly walks off the stage.”
KAFKA’S “TAGEBÜCHER”
A new English translation of Kafka’s diaries “illuminate a great deal about his world as a German-speaking Jewish writer in Prague...[but] they also go beyond our interest in the man and his time: On every page they reveal the writer at work.”
BETWEEN THE COVERS
Influential biographer Robert Caro and editor Robert Gottlieb have worked together for more than 50 years. Turn Every Page, a documenteray exploring their relationship, is “a great profile, filled with wit, affection and detailed stories.”
...and a few more links
Short takes