Denis Ledoux has been offering loads of free goodies for November’s National Life Writing Month. The latest is a free download, Who Will Read Your Book?. The guide includes a detailed form that enables authors to truly understand whom they’re writing for. Ledoux’s own audience is lifewriters/memoirists, but the handout … Continue reading
Category Archives: Storytelling and Constructing Identity
More Lifewriting Goodies and Tonight’s Teleclass
I’m continuing to receive lots of communications from Denis Ledoux of Soleil Lifestory, marking National Lifewriting Month. Tonight at 7 Eastern is his first of three teleclasses for memoir writers, “Write the First Draft of Your Memoir: Getting Started and Keeping Going.” To register for the free class, call 207-353-5454 … Continue reading
Celebrating a New Kind of Storied Career
When I first read this article about funeral celebrants, I didn’t get what the big deal was. It talked about “a growing trend at funerals: celebrants, whose aim is to make funerals more personal and meaningful while officiating the services.” It seemed to me that part of funeral officiants’ role … Continue reading
Over 70? Columnist Wants Your Story
New York Times columnist David Brooks isn’t framing his request as “stories,” but rather as essays providing “a brief report on your life so far, an evaluation of what you did well, of what you did not so well and what you learned along the way.” Nonetheless, Brooks is asking … Continue reading
When Place Take Center Stage in the Story
Novelist Jess Walter has spent most of his life in Spokane, WA, and a lot of that time wanting to leave. He expresses his ambivalence about Spokane in a cleverly written piece, “Statistical Abstract for My Hometown, Spokane, Washington,” which mixes Spokane fun facts with pathos-filled anecdotes about life in … Continue reading
A Passion for Writing? Time Management and Purposeful Living
I recently read of someone’s passion for writing, and it gave me pause. Writing is integral to my existence, but do I have a passion for it? When people ask me what I do, I tell them I’m a writer. I have wanted to be a writer since third grade, … Continue reading
Do We Tell Our Stories Differently Online Than Offline?
I’ve been fascinated for awhile about whether we construct our stories (identities, personas) differently online than we do offline. Back in the spring at the conference Digital Storytelling ’10, Molly Flatt of the agency 1000Heads looked at “look at how — and if — social media is changing the way … Continue reading
Story Drives Dance: National Dance Day Is Today
My earliest and most sustained ambition was to be a dancer — specifically a ballerina. After five years of childhood dance lessons, I realized I was no good at learning steps. Many years later, I identified my disability as a very poor capacity for kinesthetic learning; my brain simply could … Continue reading
Update on NPR/Flickr Girls’ Diary Project
NPR and Flickr have added more scanned pages from girls’ diaries, as part of the project I reported on here. I also belatedly realized that this diary project is connected with the Hidden Life of Girls project I wrote about here. I wish the connection were more clear on these … Continue reading
Discovering the Stories in Girls’ Diary Entries
I made several attempts to keep a diary when I was young, but none of them lasted. My most interesting effort was in junior high, when I fashioned my diary (a spiral-bound notebook) into a sort of newsletter with an audience of — who? I don’t quite remember if I … Continue reading