Life Story Links: October 4, 2022

“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 of the temple of thesee in Athens Greece — 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.”