I’m proud to present the 14th Q&A in my series of interviews with storytelling practitioners. I came across Sharon Lippincott’s blog and her book, The Heart and Craft of Lifestory Writing, as a result of my interest in the connection between storytelling and journaling/lifestory writing. I’ve gotten to know her just a bit better since she founded (with Jerry Waxler) and I joined a Yahoo discussion group, Lifewriters Forum. I’m presenting her Q&A over five days.
In her blog, also called The Heart and Craft of Lifestory Writing, Sharon says of herself: “I’m an observer and interpreter of the life experience and author of The Heart and Craft of Lifestory Writing and The Albuquerque Years. My passion is writing lifestories and memoir and helping others discover how to find and express their unique stories.” Learn more about her on her Web site.
Q&A with Sharon Lippincott (Question 1):
Q: The storytelling movement seems to be growing explosively. Why now? What is it about this moment in human history and culture that makes storytelling so resonant with so many people right now?
A: Several years ago I heard someone on NPR describe “The Confetti Generation.” He explained with increasing diversity in our culture, over one hundred television stations to choose from, the Internet to take you anywhere in the world, and similar factors, society was becoming fragmented, without much cultural cohesion. Connections between people were breaking down and their souls were suffering. I think people are hungry to rebuild this sense of connection, and we are doing this through the medium of stories, whether oral or written.
My specialty is written stories. Computer technology seems to be the primary force in this current explosion of life writing. Few people would bother writing more than a few pages if they didn’t have computers on their desks to make it easy to edit, compile, print, and share with an unlimited audience. Print-on-demand publishing has made it feasible to create bound books for about the same cost as photocopies. Technology is empowering people to realize dreams they wouldn’t have had in the past.
Coupled with that, interest in genealogy has skyrocketed as people are now able to sit at their desk and search archives the world over, connecting with other researchers, sharing scans, and making contact with relatives they never knew they had. The realization that most ancestors have been reduced to nothing more than names on sketchy public records is sobering, and motivates many to take steps to ensure their descendants will know something about the person who bore that name.
Some are writing about the past in the hopes that a way of life will be encased in a written time capsule of sorts, In little more than one hundred years, our nation has gone from horse-powered transportation to space probes. I want my descendants to know what life was like in the mid-twentieth century, and about changes that have occurred over the course of my life. I suspect that some drastic changes lie ahead rather soon, and I want them to know how those changes impacted me and people I know.
Finally, many are discovering that writing about their past brings richer meaning to it. They savor the good times and in retrospect, often find hidden blessings in the darker moments.