Life Story Links: January 19, 2021

 
 

“I could tell this story with myself as the villain or the hero, innocent bystander or agent provocateur, and each time I’d be telling a form of the ‘truth.’ What is the value of a truth that has an infinite number of forms?”
—Marc Hammer

 
On this day in history: Snow fell for the first time in Miami on January 19, 1977 (though for the most part the flakes melted when they hit the ground).

On this day in history: Snow fell for the first time in Miami on January 19, 1977 (though for the most part the flakes melted when they hit the ground).

 
 

Recent Memoir & Biography

“SUFFERING WITHOUT SENTIMENTALITY”
“I wanted to abandon all this personal history, its darkness and secrecy, its private grievances, its well-licked sorrows and prides—to thrust it from me like a manhole cover,” Bette Howland wrote in her 1974 memoir W-3, which has been recently reissued.

ON WRITING AND LIFE
Gabriel Byrne’s new memoir, Walking with Ghosts, has been hailed as a “masterpiece” by Colum McCann and as “dreamy, lyrical, and utterly unvarnished” by Colm Toibin. Listen in as Byrne talks about memory, loneliness, and more.

ANOTHER SIDE OF SYLVIA
“There’s this sense in other biographies that she was only writing to please other people—to get love from her mother, her professors, her teachers—and I thought that short-changed her own sense of ambition and determination and the pleasure that she got out of writing.” Heather Clark on not falling into the Sylvia Plath trap.

 
 

Timely Tips

TREASURE, NOT TRASH
Last week I wrote about what everyone can do to ensure their own family photo collections are inviting to the next generation—for, whether we want to believe it or not, many kids simply throw away those once cherished pictures.

LISTEN UP
“What might happen if you read your memoir aloud as if talking to a therapist…?” David Perez ponders in this piece on the power of speaking your writing to life (spoiler alert: there is substantial power in the exercise).

FREE SELF-PUBLISHING WEBINAR JAN. 25
During “Everything You Want to Know About Self-Publishing but Are Afraid to Ask” you’ll “leave with a roadmap to the self-publishing journey so you can start taking action now.” Register for the free January 25 Zoom class here.

 
 

...and a Few More Links

 
 

Short Takes