WHAT IS A PERSONAL HISTORY, what makes it different from an autobiography or memoir, and why would it be worth your time to create one? In its simplest form, a personal history could be comprised of a list of the places you’ve lived, the schools you’ve attended, the jobs you’ve […]
I gather together the dreams, fantasies, experiences that preoccupied me as a girl, that stay with me and appear and reappear in different shapes and forms in all my work. Without telling everything that happened, they document all that remains most vivid. ~Bell Hooks YOU’VE DREAMED of writing a memoir […]
IT’S HARD FOR ME TO BELIEVE, but I’m rapidly approaching the eighth anniversary of launching WritingThroughLife. That’s right. I’ve been blogging here for almost eight years! And during these years I have written a large number of articles on journaling, memoir and legacy writing, technology tools for writers, and publishing. I started […]
‘Tis the season for sending holiday cards and letters. Personally, I love to receive these newsy letters from friends and relatives. Sure, they can be a little on the rosy side (who wants to write about life’s depressing details and send them out during the holidays for heaven’s sake!), but […]
A confused student recently asked me about the difference between legacy writing and memoir. “Aren’t they pretty much the same thing?” she wanted to know. “Aren’t they both just writing about life?” “Well, yes and no,” I said. Not the clearcut answer she probably wanted. Yes, they are both forms […]
The article, “The Centenarian’s Secret,” in the 5-Minute Memoir section of February’s Writer’s Digest Magazine caught my attention. In it, author Diane Speare Triant describes her chance meeting with 103-year-old Nelson McNutt and of subsequently writing and publishing an article summarizing his life story. After his death two years later, […]
