- Nancy Heifferon/Personal Historian
http://onwithyourstory.com/blog-archives/
Your book is a treasure trove of writing prompts and ideas of interview
questions…..Brava.
- Susan Hoffman/Librarian and Archivist
I’ve never considered writing a life story. Like most of us perhaps, I just haven’t thought that I have done anything remarkable enough– good or bad to make note of. But after reading through the list titled Why Write? in Hella Buchheim’s book on life story writing, I am persuaded that within my little circle of family and friends, my written memories, however modest, might constitute the best gift I could ever give.
Hella Buchheim’s collection of newsletter essays about writing “Remembering: Life Story Triggers and Memory Essays” is pleasantly readable and plainly practical. The pleasures are frequent. Each essay introduces a topic to explore, first through remembering and then through writing. Topics such as Seasons, Fears, Change, Objects, and even Tax Time are among over fifty topics that Buchheim introduces as grist for the writing mill. Topics the triggers of the subtitles, are offered with a modest introduction and more often than not, illustrated with an excerpt from the authorâs own reminiscence on the topic. The excerpts never show the writer working straining for an idea. Here’s an example from the essay on A First Love:
When I was in the eighth grade, my best friend Amy and I fell madly in love with this guy named Geoff. How cool was it to spell your name Geoff rather than Jeff? He oozed coolness. P.44
It’s the details around the triggers, first love, rather than the first love itself, so hard to pin down in the abstract that Buchheim encourages us to recall. And happily, she provides us with questions in each installment that prod us to remember. First Love asks ,”How did you know you were in love?”, “How did true love differ from first love?” and several more questions designed to stimulate reflection and see a trigger from different angles. Buchheim sticks to this format of introducing the trigger, supplying some type of reflection her own writing or commentary by other authors, followed by a series of questions designed to help the reader explore it and investigate which facets elicit a response. It’s an easy model to incorporate into practice, and the triggers are accessible and universal.
Mainly, Remembering provides encouragement and guidance about writing for pleasure and posterity. For those interested stretching the story and researching family genealogy for a family life story, Buchheim provides ample information on book design, photo and media preservation and transfer, small publishers and other publishing related resources.
Remembering is a genial and enthusiastic introduction to personal story-telling. I appreciate that the aim of all of the advice that Buchheim offers is to validate the taking the time to record what is genuinely personal. In a world of instant messaging, Friending and the fake intimacy of reality TV, it is good to get encouragement to observe closely and write with a long view.
