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
Category Archives: Storytelling and Journaling, Memoir, Lifewriting
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
November is Lifewriting Month
So Denis Ledoux reminds me in a newsletter (The Lifewriter’s Digest) from his Soleil Lifestory Network. I’m not sure how I got on the mailing list for this newsletter, but I’m glad I am because it is absolutely packed with content: Memoir Prompts for November 1-5 8 Tips…to Get You … 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
Coming Up in November: National Life Writing Month and NaNoWriMo
I had heard the term NaNoWriMo before last year, but didn’t really know what it meant. Last year, though, my cousin, Alex Lucas, posted a number of status updates/tweets that he was participating in NaNoWriMo, so I got curious enough to look up the term and learn that it means … Continue reading
Free Guide to Journaling Offered
The site Women’s Memoirs is offering a free 22-page book, Journaling Essentials: Everything You Need to Know to Start by Amber Lea Starfire. Here’s what’s in the guide includes: Seven Wonderful Benefits of Journaling: Each benefit comes with an exercise and space to conduct the exercise. The benefits Starfire discusses are: … 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
My Latin-Scholar Story and a Convergence with a Story Icon
When I was preparing to enter high school, my father told me I had to take Latin. His mother had been a Greek and Latin scholar at Wellesley, and later briefly taught these classic languages. I was not enthusiastic about Latin. I wanted to take French. My father and I … 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