Of Shoes and Ships and Sealing Wax

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It’s been a while since I updated our collection of books. Here you go
02/13/2018

It’s been a while since I updated our collection of books. Here you go

12/22/2017

A quote from News of the World by Paulette Jiles:

"Maybe life is just carrying the news. Surviving to carry the news. Maybe we have just one message, and it is delivered to us when we are born and we are never sure what it says; it may have nothing to do with us personally but it must be carried by hand through a life, all the way, and at the end handed over, sealed."

Any thoughts on this?

09/16/2017

I've been re-reading Atul Gawande's book "Being Mortal" and these sentences struck me:

"For human beings, life is meaningful because it is a story. A story has a sense of a whole, and its arc is determined by the significant moments, the ones where something happens."

Do you agree?

11/07/2015

A quote from What I Loved by Siri Hustvedt: "We manufacture stories, after all, from fleeting sensory material that bombards us at every instant, a fragmented series of pictures, conversations, odors, and the touch of things and people."

Do you agree? Why or why not?

09/07/2015

In his recent book, Being Mortal, Dr. Atul Gawande says
"For human beings, life is meaningful because it is a story. A story has a sense of a whole, and its arc is determined by the significant moments, the ones where something happens."

Comments?

07/07/2015

A great quote! Thanks for posting, Erin Hart.

06/18/2015

I just finished my own memoir! Now to do the hard work--revision and line editing.

02/17/2015

Our latest project is a series of essays written over several years. We will edit them for clarity and cohesion, format them for publication and add photos. Do you have poems or essays you'd like published? Get in touch!

01/21/2015

We recently spent time in Puerto Rico and as soon as we came home I made a photo book on Shutterfly--before I forgot details of the trip. The first time I went to Cebu, Philippines I kept a journal. What memorable trips have you taken and how did you record them?

12/04/2014

Holiday memories can be very potent. What do you remember from childhood holidays?

04/26/2014

I'm reading Patricia Hampl's "I Could Tell You Stories." It's interesting to think about how that intro differs from "Once upon a time..."

03/28/2014
Tang Museum

Last night's live edition of Krista Tippett's show On Being contributed to my thinking about memories. Dario Robleto talked about how important it is to hold on to the memories of those you love. He does that by creating sculptures including this one meant to honor his parents:
https://tang.skidmore.edu/index.php/slideshows/view/id:22/page:21

Be sure to read about the composition of the sculpture.

Tang

03/23/2014
Sting tells TED audience of the only way he could overcome writer's block...

Here's the TED talk David Brooks refers to.

Sting is a prolific songwriter, author of a decades-long career first with the Police and then on his own, filled with pop-chart toppers, platinum records and music industry trophies to show for it. Then came the drought. Sting explained at the TED Conference in Vancouver how he fought his way back…

03/23/2014
Going Home Again

This column says a lot about why writing about the past can be therapeutic.

Sting reminds us all that sometimes you have to gaze back into the past in order to move forward.

03/21/2014

Words from Ysaye Barnwell's song "Wanting Memories"--

I am sitting here wanting
Memories to teach me
To see the beauty in the world
Through my own eyes

What do you think she means?

03/10/2014

Today I am thankful that we published memoirs about/by both of our fathers and Dave's mother. I wish I had done the same for my mom. Compile those stories before it's too late!

02/19/2014

"The best things in life are free." What is the best thing in your life right now? For me, it would be hearing my grandson say, "I love you" for the first time. I had to have access to a computer and use FaceTime so technically not free, I guess, but it definitely made my day.

01/18/2014

I love these lines from Richard Russo's book, Bridge of Sighs--"odd, how our view of human destiny changes over the course of a lifetime. In youth we believe...that life is all choice...the distinct possibility that choice itself may be an illusion is something we disregard because we're curious to know what's behind that next door.,,to see a lif back to front, as everyone begins to do in middle age, is to strip it of its mystery and wrap it in inevitability, drama's enemy...and yet...some events manage to retain their drama and significance. Bobby alone, it seems to me, invented both a life and a self to live in it."

What do you think?

01/08/2014

Dave has a new book of poetry for sale on Amazon! It's entitled The St. Paul Manual of Style. Check it out!

01/03/2014

Does anyone have a resolution that involves writing? I'm just hoping to be more consistent in my efforts to produce material.

12/21/2013

What is your favorite holiday memory?

11/29/2013

My book club read and discussed "The Call of Stories" by Robert Coles. He talks about stories, both read and told as a form of therapy. What book or character has stuck with you long after you finished reading?

07/17/2013

I just learned a new term for what I try to do in memoir writing. It's "intuitive anthropology" meaning writing based on memory, research and intuition. Intuition comes into play particularly when re- creating conversations. Comments?

05/05/2013
William Zinsser, Author of ‘On Writing Well,’ at His Work

I love this essay about William Zinsser. His statement "don't worry about labels" is appropriate for memoir writers. Write what you know. Labels are for publishers and salesmen.

William Zinsser, the 90-year-old author of “On Writing Well,” can no longer see. So now he coaches writers by listening to their prose.

05/03/2013

Quote from Eric Utne of the Utne Reader: "If something's worth writing, it's worth writing poorly. Ninety percent of the writing of even the best writers is unpublishable, i.e., it needs lots of revision, rearranging, and copy editing." Do you agree?

04/28/2013

What memoirs have you read and enjoyed?

04/12/2013

Andre Dubus recently gave a talk titled "Making it Up versus Imagining It." How are those processes different? What do they have to do with telling the stories of our lives?

04/11/2013

Quote from Colum McCann, "I believe in the redemptive democracy of storytelling"

04/06/2013
Fiction or Non-fiction?

Fiction or Non-fiction?

Dave and I recently read a book by Jonathan Gottschall entitled The Storytelling Animal. In the chapter “Life Stories” he describes several infamous memorists and the fictions they created to make their lives more interesting to the public. The subject ……

04/06/2013

Dave and I just finished a book called The Storytelling Animal by Jonathan Gottschall. Here's a quote from the book jacket: "He argues that stories help us navigate life's complex social problems... Storytelling has evolved, like other behaviors, to ensure our survival." For me, that statement adds some urgency to the need to share our personal stories with the next generation.

02/13/2013

Here's an excerpt from Dave's memoir. Those of you living in Arizona will appreciate this:

02/05/2013

Here's an excerpt from my fictional memoir about my grandmother's experience as a Minnesota farmer's wife:

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Saint Paul, MN
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