Life Story Links: October 5, 2021
“Put it before them briefly so they will read it, clearly so they will appreciate it, picturesquely so they will remember it and, above all, accurately so they will be guided by its light.”
—Joseph Pulitzer
Vintage photo of kids playing football, October 1947, by Wallace Kirkland for LIFE magazine; © Time.
Celebrating Hispanic Heritage
VIVAN LOS VOCES
in collaboration with StoryCorps, AARP has launched “Vivan Las Voces” (Long Live the Voices), a national audio story collection project dedicated to capturing the diverse stories and experiences of the U.S. Latino community. Head to StoryCorps Connect to record your conversation, and tag it #VivanLosVoces to become part of the permanent collection.
KICKOFF STORYTELLING EVENT OCT. 25
The Power of YOUR Stories—Hispanic Heritage Celebration is a free online event on Monday, October 25, 2021 at 12pm ET. Panelists will weave stories connected to caregiving, food, family, and more, and hope to inspire folks at home to record their own stories.
TAKING IT TO SOCIAL MEDIA
Latino individuals “from San Francisco to Seattle to Miami are reflecting on their family’s history and contributions in celebratory social media posts highlighting their relatives' and ancestors' work and journeys.”
Meet the Storytellers
A CONVERSATION BETWEEN STORYTELLERS
“I’m always surprised. I still can’t believe that I gave birth to you. And I feel the same way about the stories.” Writer Meg Wolitzer interviews her mother, Hilma, also a writer, for the first time.
“TAKING BACK MY OWN HISTORY”
“Betty has an amazing ability to share her own story in a really personal and vulnerable way—not so people know more about her, but so they understand that they too have a story. We all have a history—and it’s just as important as the history we learn in school.” Meet the fabulous, 100-year-old park ranger Betty Reid Soskin.
GRATITUDE, ALWAYS
For years I’ve shied away from sharing praise about the books I create (and the experiences clients have partnering with me to make them). Thanks to a few fellow creative entrepreneurs for the push to not only share some testimonials, but to celebrate them!
Memoir & First-Person Storytelling
MEMORY, IDENTITY, AND STORY
“Rather than prioritizing confession and catharsis, today’s authors are focusing on the question of who gets to share their version of things and interrogating the form, along with themselves.” Megan O’Grady on how recent literary memoirs take a different tack.
WALDORF STORIES
In honor of its 90th anniversary, NYC’s Waldorf Astoria hotel has created a website to share stories through videos, memorabilia, and essays. The oral history hub kicks off with curated selections from workers and guests (including a couple who hid a time capsule in their wedding suite).
THE TALENTED MS. HIGHSMITH
“The eight thousand pages of diaries and notebooks [novelist Patricia Highsmith] left behind—an edited version of which will be published this November—depict an engaged, social, and optimistic youth.”
NAMING THAT EXPERIENCE
“Eldest daughter of an immigrant household. For a phrase I’d never heard before, it immediately summoned an avalanche of memories.” Ruth Madievsky with an interesting take on learning lessons on diasporic identity from meme culture.
“THE STORYTELLER”
W.G. Sebald’s books suggest that we are powerless to remember adequately and powerless to forget, according to a review of new biography Speak, Silence: In Search of W.G. Sebald by Carole Angier.
Family History Fun
ROAD TRIP TO THE PAST
After being a stranger to family reunions for 64 years, Zoe Morrison, a personal historian in Florida, drove more than 3,000 miles in search of bits of her own family history.
GAMIFYING HISTORY?
Svoboda 1945: Liberation, a new video game from an independent Prague-based studio (preview below), includes interviews with real actors and historically accurate memories of people who lived through WW2. “We believe that games are a great medium for telling stories and have the power to tackle serious issues,” the lead designer said.
Memory Bank
THE LONG GAME
“Memory is an unruly machine, embedded in a Russian nesting doll of systems and circuits that is the brain,” Hannah Seo writes in this thoughtful look at how making predictions may impede memories from encoding.
POSSIBLE BOOST TO MEMORY RETENTION
A new discovery about the effects of magnetic brain stimulation could provide a way to improve episodic memory in people with conditions such as dementia.
...and a Few More Links
Would it surprise you to learn that the original paper ship manifests from Ellis Island no longer exist?
How making Nuclear Family helped documentarian Ry Russo-Young come to terms with her past
Are video games “crucial to the ‘creation of public knowledge of the past’”?
Jim Sheeler, who turned the simple obituary into a high and reverent art, has died.
Short Takes