Writers and Editors

Memoir, biography, autobiography, personal history, oral history, corporate and organizational history -- in short, life stories

• Books to help you get started writing your own (or someone else's) life story
• Books to help lead life story writing or reminiscence groups
• Links to useful sites and resources
• U.S. history timelines and oral histories
• What is the difference between a memoir (or memoirs) and an autobiography?

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BOOKS TO HELP YOU GET STARTED WRITING YOUR OWN LIFE STORY

I've listed these roughly in order of how highly I would recommend them.

· Rainer, Tristine. Your Life as Story: Discovering the "New Autobiography" and Writing Memoir as Literature. An excellent guide to memoir writing that probes well below “First I did this and then I did this,” asking you to think about your life. Some object to her de-emphasis on historical accuracy.

· Franco, Carol and Kent Lineback. The Legacy Guide: Capturing the Facts, Memories,and Meaning of Your Life. Moving from facts to memories to meaning, this guide takes you through the seven stages of life, to recall forgotten moments and discover their significance. Good examples.

· Baldwin, Christina. Storycatcher: Making Sense of Our Lives Through the Power and Practice of Story. Says Baldwin, “Our life story is our constant companion,the litany that guides our every move and thought. So we need to make our lives a story we can live with, because we live the life our story makes possible.”

· Thurston, Dawn and Morris. Breathe Life into Your Life Story: How to Write a Story People Will Want to Read. Advice and examples on “showing” rather than "telling"; creating credible interesting characters and settings; writing from the gut; alternating scene and narrative; generating suspense, etc.

· Mary Borg. Writing Your Life: An Easy-to-Follow Guide to Writing an Autobiography. Questions to tease out a life story, writing tips, and excerpts from real autobiographies.

· Duane Elgin, Colleen Ledrew. Living Legacies: How to Write, Illustrate, and Share Your Life Stories. How to write your stories and illustrate them with photographs, memorabilia, and other images (including digital format).


· Zinsser, William. Writing About Your Life: A Journey into the Past. Using his own story as an example, the author of excellent books on writing well shows how to be selective in choosing the stories to tell and the details to use.

· Zinsser, William, ed. Inventing the Truth: The Art and Craft of Memoir. Very good talks by Russell Baker, Annie Dillard, Alfred Kazin, Toni Morrison, and Lewis Thomas.

· Zinsser, William, ed. Extraordinary Lives: The Art and Craft of American Biography. Thoughtful talks (and biography shop talk) by Robert A. Caro, David McCullough, Paul C. Nagel, Richard B. Sewall, Ronald Steel, and Jean Strouse.

· Kotre, John. White Gloves: How We Create Ourselves Through Memory. Interesting insights.

· McDonnell, Jane Taylor. Living to Tell the Tale: A Guide to Writing Memoir. With a special emphasis on writing "crisis memoirs," finding "our own meaningfulness, even in the midst of sadness and disappointment." (This book may be hard to find.)

· Spence, Linda. Legacy: A Step-By-Step Guide to Writing Personal History. Useful memory prompts.

· Rosenbluth, Vera. Keeping Family Stories Alive: Discovering and Recording the Stories and Reflections of a Lifetime. Good on interviewing and recording techniques.

· Barrington, Judith. Writing the Memoir: From Truth to Art.

How To Do Biography: A Primer, by Nigel Hamilton. Short and to the point.

· Kempthorne, Charley. For All Time: A Complete Guide to Writing Your Family History. An encouraging guide.

· Ledoux, Denis. Turning Memories into Memoirs: A Handbook for Writing Lifestories. Workshop in a book.

· Johnson, Marilyn. The Dead Beat: Lost Souls, Lucky Stiffs, and the Perverse Pleasures of Obituaries. A delightful account of how those final stories get told.

Of possible peripheral interest:
Biography: A User's Guide, by Carl Rollyson

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BOOKS TO HELP LEAD LIFE STORY WRITING OR REMINISCENCE GROUPS Reminiscence and life review, especially guided by someone who knows how to make the most of the experience, is an important developmental phase, in which we older adults take stock of our lives and, with luck, begin to see both pleasant and unpleasant memories as part of what shaped our identity. With aging, retirement, divorce, widowhood, and separation from our children, we lose roles we once played and may experience less sense of identity and self-worth. Life review, however done, can be therapeutic, and in groups, under a masterful leader, can also be enormous fun. Good groups bond. Creative juices flow. Hearing each other's stories brings back our own often forgotten memories, good and bad, which in the presence of sympathetic others can be healing.

Two books I have found particularly useful and interesting in terms of how to run such a group (including how to deal with disruptive, self-absorbed, or shy participants):

· Kaminsky, Marc, ed. The Uses of Reminiscence: New Ways of Working with Older Adults. Interesting reading even if you don't plan to lead a reminiscence group for elders, and useful if you do.

· Birren, James E. and Donna E. Deutchman, Guiding Autobiography Groups for Older Adults: Exploring the Fabric of Life. Provides questions to provoke discussions on different themes, transitions: On the major branching points in your life, on family, on major life work and career, on the role of money in one's life, on health and body image, on sex roles and sexual experiences, on experiences with and ideas about death, on loves and hates, on the meaning of life (aspirations and goals), on the role of music, art, or literature in your life, and on your experiences with stress.

Here are some others you may find useful:

Writing Alone and With Others, by Pat Schneider (an update of The Writer as an Artist, by the founder of the Amherst Writers and Artists Press and workshop method in Amherst, Massachusetts)

Carol Franco's book, The Legacy Guide: Capturing the Facts, Memories,and Meaning of Your Life, is also useful in leading groups.

Transformational Reminiscence: Life Story Work, by John A. Kunz, Florence Gray Soltys, and others, provides professional insight into the process of helping older adults with reminiscence and life review.

Here's a new book that I found less than useful for my purposes (teaching life story writing) but it may be useful to academics who want their students to analyze life writing:

Teaching Life Writing Texts, ed. Miriam Fuchs, Craig Howes

Two new anthologies are filled with examples of reminiscence:

Listening Is an Act of Love, edited by Dave Isay (stories about home and family, work and dedication, journeys, history and struggle, and 9/11), from the StoryCorps Project

Born Before Plastic: Stories from Boston’s Most Enduring Neighborhoods (Vol. 1: North End, Roxbury, and South Boston), from Grub Street’s Memoir Project (giving seniors a chance to turn their memories into published narratives).

And the Association of Personal Historians is putting together a new anthology that will be VERY useful in providing examples of how to do life story writing. E-mail Pat (pat at patmcnees dot com) if you want to be put on the mailing list to be notified when that anthology is published.

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SEE ALSO THE LINKS AND READING LISTS FOR NARRATIVE NONFICTION (LINK BELOW).

In an article in The Chronicle of Higher Education, Steve Weinberg (author of Taking on the Trust: The Epic Battle of Ida Tarbell and John D. Rockefeller) recommends that students of biography read The Many Lives of Marilyn Monroe by Sarah Churchwell. "Churchwell compares every biography ever written of the dead actress. She shows persuasively, and with flair, that not every biography of Monroe can be true in all the details, because they contradict each other profoundly. Her book will burn into students' minds the lesson that biographical truth should never be taken for granted."

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U.S. HISTORY TIMELINES AND ORAL HISTORIES

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WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A MEMOIR (OR MEMOIRS) AND AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY?

I am often asked, ‘What is the difference between a memoir and an autobiography?’ As Marc Pachter, the guru of our Washington Biography Group, puts it, an autobiography is a complete life—often but not always moving in a line from birth to fame—which may or may not be the author's inward journey. Publishers increasingly call autobiographies memoirs (plural).

A memoir (singular) is not the larger story of a life (from birth to fame), but may be a slice of that life, the shaping of a single piece of experience, a crystallized version of “I remember.” In the view of William Zinsser, “memoir assumes the life and ignores most of it. The writer of a memoir takes us back to a corner of his or her life that was unusually vivid or intense—childhood, for instance—or that was framed by unique events. By narrowing the lens, the writer achieves a focus that isn’t possible in autobiography.”

The nature of the memoir, says Marc Pachter, is to be more outward than inward: “myself among others,” “myself in the world,” “my view of my public self.” Marc doesn't think it’s about a “corner” of a life only.

In many ways a memoir resembles a piece of fiction, in being a single story, often using techniques from fiction.

Finally, says Marc Pachter, a confession is an account of one’s personal, totally inward progression (or regression). An early example: the Confessions of St. Augustine.

Because I teach life story writing, and help people write their memoirs (and organizations write their histories), there is a long section on life story writing on my personal website. See link above, to Saving lives, one story at a time (the motto of APH) as well as a link to the page on my website about writing ethical wills, or legacy letters — the stories and sentiments you want to leave behind in writing or on audio or video, to tell your survivors about what you have loved, valued, and especially remember about your life and the people in it.




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