Life Story Links: September 15, 2020
“If you don’t grow and change in the telling of your life, the reader will not receive your hard-earned wisdom. It’s what editors call ‘the payoff.’ We call it good storytelling.”
—Brenda Peterson and Sarah Jane Freyman, Your Life Is a Book
On this day 57 years ago, September 15, 1963, four young Black girls were murdered as they prepared for their Sunday School lesson at the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, in a bombing by the Ku Klux Klan. This photograph shows Emma Bell, Dorie Ladner, Dona Richards, Sam Shirah and Doris Derby—workers from the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee—outside the funeral of the girls, Denise McNair, Carole Robertson, Addie Collins, and Cynthia Wesley. Photograph by Danny Lyons, courtesy Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C.
Book Craft
DON’T CALL IT A MEMOIR
Sometimes the idea of telling our “life story“ is overwhelming. If we think of memoir as a series of smaller life narratives, though, the way in becomes clear.
MEET THE EDITORS
“There’s no such thing as the ‘best editor’—there’s only the best editor for you,” writes Samantha Shubert of NYC–based Remarkable Life Memoirs in this piece busting three myths about editors (and no, they’re not judgy grammar police).
ONE STORY AT A TIME
Ten seniors met with Nancy West for one hour each to share a story from their lives, and the results were fruitful and lively (and absolutely in line with the mission to help alleviate seniors’ loneliness and isolation). Now Nancy is offering mini-memoirs as part of her services at her Massachusetts–based personal history business.
Memoir & Memories
ON GROWING OLDER
“This memoir is alive with the urgency of a man in his seventies still yearning to achieve a realized life,” Vivian Gornick says of Lee Gutkind's My Last Eight Thousand Days, due out on October 1. Listen in on a virtual conversation between these two legends of the genre on the book’s release date.
WARTIME MEMORIES
“History is most authentic when you have participants telling you what happened to them, their own personal experiences…. Our core focus is preserving stories that are otherwise going to be gone and forgotten.” As the 75th anniversary of World War II’s end approaches, local interviews preserve war stories for future generations.
OF FOOD AND LIFE
Whether it’s being cooped up during this pandemic and cooking more often or just the warmth our food memories bring, folks have been asking me for tips on preserving their food heritage more than ever. While a few posts are planned, up first is this one with an overview of how to begin.
Photo Inspiration
PICTURES AND WORDS
“Writing from Photographs” is the title of a four-week self-guided online course being offered by Creative Nonfiction, which will include writing prompts and inspiration exploring “the rich possibilities of the space between photograph and experience.”
30-MINUTE DOSE OF INSPIRATION
While the above course caters to those intent on writing their memoir, the free mini-course I created for Save Your Photos Month this year is designed for everyone, non-writers included: It’s called “Save the Story of Just One Photo,” but I can’t fathom you stopping at just one.
A NEW YORK ORIGINAL
“He pulled out old photographs and told of his tales. He read passages from the memoir he wrote nearly twenty years earlier—a memoir to his grandkids. And, in typical Joe fashion, he made us martinis to clink to what was truly a meaningful day.” Meet Joe.
Remembering 9/11
TEACH THE CHILDREN
With the 19th anniversary of the horrific 9/11 attacks just passed and many families home-schooling their children during the pandemic, I thought I would share these interactive lesson plans for students in grades 3–12 from the 9/11 Memorial & Museum, including one that teaches how first-person accounts and multiple perspectives deepen historical study.
TINY TRIBUTES
Can a remembrance really mean anything when it’s just a little over two minutes? Watch this moving video from the StoryCorp September 11 Initiative, and you tell me…
…then listen to this one-minute-and-24-second audio clip of Ester DiNardo recalling how her daughter Marisa brought her to Windows on the World atop the World Trade Center the day before she perished in the attack:
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Oral History Ester DiNardo
You may also read the full transcript of Ester’s testimony, or listen in to other recorded oral history accounts from the 9/11 Memorial Museum’s oral history collection.
...and a Few More Links
New research into how the brain manages to safeguard our memories
She “accidentally accumulated the world’s largest achive of ’80s Esprit merch”
Old-fashioned scrapbooking as an artistic form of memory-keeping
Compelling short first-person read: “How to Eat Crabs with Your Mother-in-Law”
Short Takes