Read moreA friend hands you a picture of your newborn that you thought you would never see again, and you realize that the defining moments in your life never leave you. They lurk, waiting for the right moment to remind you of all you’ve been through, learned, and survived.
In honor of Black History Month: the dream continues
Read moreMLK’s speech was different. The first time I read it to myself, it brought tears to my eyes. Specifically the line, “a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.” Though I was a teenager mostly focused on the people and relationships directly connected to me at the time, this line and everything I read or saw of the Civil Rights movement afterward took me out of myself, made me recognize an experience beyond mine.
Voices from long ago
Read moreIt can be tempting to use the phone to connect with someone directly, but doing so robs you of the chance to speak to someone in the future—someone curious about family, about memory, about historical events. Someone like me.
Remember me: How Pixar's “Coco” encourages us to remember our family stories
Read moreWhether or not you believe the stories behind the Day of the Dead, there is a mythic truth to the central idea: when we remember our ancestors, they do live on. Storytelling is a continually evolving activity: even if you think your ancestors’ stories are fixed in time, actively remembering and retelling the stories may strike you differently as you grow older. Maybe a different part of the story resonates. Maybe you learn new information through research or other voices, which create a new narrative or shift the old one.
Real-life partners
Read moreOur most important partners are the clients who bring passion and meaning to what might have been a dry, functional publishing factory. We form an emotional bond with our memoirists and their families, and that was as true on Day 1 as it is today.
What you can learn from my missed opportunities
Read moreWhile I am the writer in the family, that did not mean I was the right person to write my own relative’s stories. In the reporting world we know that the worst person to report a story is one who is connected to it.