Life Story Links: July 23, 2024

“The reason I write memoir is to be able to see the experience itself…. Writing is a way to organize your life, give it a frame, give it a structure, so that you can really see what it was that happened.”
—Sue William Silverman

Vintage photograph of boy leaning on a fire hydrant in New York City by Morris Huberland, taken in the mid-twentieth century, courtesy the Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs: Photography Collection, The New York Public Library Digital Collection.

A mosaic of pieces on memoir, personal history, and preservation

HISTORY VAULT
“‘We are absorbed in thinking about our ancestors,’ [Frederic Harrison] wrote. ‘Why do we not give a thought to our descendants?’ Accordingly, he posed his fix: to ‘prepare a Pompeii’ for future researchers to unearth.”

TRANSFORMATIVE POWER OF SELF-REFLECTION
“Every person I have guided on a life writing journey has discovered profound benefits for themselves. Even without a single other individual having read their words, those words have changed them.”

SHIFTING PERSPECTIVES
“A memoir needs to be anchored by facts, yet each of our individual stories can be seen from unlimited perspectives with slight shifts.” Mira Ptacin on the hard art of seeing one’s own writing through rose-colored glasses.

FOR YOUR TBR LIST?
“Stars may or may not be like us, but there is one thing they all seem to have in common: they love writing about their lives.” Time magazine names the 36 best celebrity memoirs.

ON CREATIVE DECISIONS IN BIOGRAPHY
“I just think that when you’re writing a biography, you have a duty to the chronology. The chronology is almost fundamental to the whole enterprise, in my view.” Ryan Cropp speaks with podcast host Gabriella Kelly Davies:

WISDOM FROM SEASONED WRITERS
“In my conversations with my family members and knowing their history and their struggle, I remember that I'm somebody and [they’re] somebody. And that's a very powerful thing.” Author Min Jin Lee talks to fellow writers experienced in family memoir generally, and the migrant journey specifically, about how to talk to parents about their personal history. Listen in: