Life Story Links: September 17, 2024

“Telling is how we cement details, preserve continuity, stay sane. We say ourselves into being every day, or else.”
—J. R. Moehringer

Vintage postcard with an illustration of a romantic couple in a small boat on a spring day, postmarked 1906; from the personal ephemera collection of Dawn Roode..

History made personal

BABYLONIAN RECIPE TABLETS
“Even though these people are talking to us from 4,000 years ago, there’s a continuity of civilization in this region that’s connected to living culture and the communities that are there today.” What researchers learned from the world’s oldest cookbook.

BRINGING WAR TESTIMONIES TO LIFE
A Japanese software company is using AI to “capture people’s real emotions and likenesses to pass on the history of the war and the experiences of A-bomb survivors”:

Click to watch a news report about how the new technology is being implemented with survivors who share their stories through oral history interviews.

Visuals help enliven written stories

WHEN IT COMES TO DESIGN…
Your life story book is yours, of course, but it’s one piece of a broader family history, too. Adding this one thing will give your descendants an easy way to map the supporting “characters” in your stories.

WHAT A PICTURE’S WORTH
As a professional book designer, Susan Hood has used her skills to preserve her family’s history in a variety of ways using little or no original text. Here she shares some ideas for telling your life story through images.

A RICHLY VISUAL STORY
Of his graphic novel The Mythmakers: The Remarkable Fellowship of C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien, John Hendrix says, “I am really using a dual biography as an avatar for telling a deeper story about the origins of fairy tales, the meaning of myth in the history of the human story.”

FROM MESS TO ORGANIZED ARCHIVE
Avoid overwhelm when preserving research materials: These five easy steps from Family Tree magazine will guide you through a manageable, organized digitization plan.

VOICES FROM THE PAST
Storycorps curated some stories in honor of back-to-school season, including this one they animated below, as well as a collection of history-themed short interviews appropriate for classrooms.

More on memoir & life writing

GETTING PAST GO
“The fear that I won’t find an ending often prevents me from beginning,” Megan Febuary tells a reader who calls themself “Stuck Before I Start.” Here Febuary offers up some tactics and writing exercises to get unblocked.

CONTEMPLATING ANY KIND OF DIY LEGACY BOOK?
“I realized I was the missing link between the past and the future. My connection to her story will help future family members see their connection.” Lisa L. Duncan turned her godmother’s poetry collection into a legacy book, then crafted a thorough and helpful blog post outlining decisions she made along the way.

QUESTIONS, ANSWERS…NOW WHAT?
Inspired by questions from class participants, Rachel Trotter of Utah–based Evalogue Life shares ideas with what to do with personal history recordings once your interviews are complete.

LOOKING BACK ON AN IMMIGRANT CHILDHOOD
“Every memoir has an unseen twin—a book that, if it were written, would chronicle the people, places, and books that made the pages of the memoir possible.”