Storyical: Your Stories Are Historical

Nica Waters is a teacher and sailor, and started writing memoir through a class. She uses writing to work her way through issues that she is dealing with, but she used her memoir writing class to compile stories about her grandmother. Motivated to share these stories with her grandmother while she was still alive, Nica compiled and polished a trove of stories that were like love letters to her grandmother. Nica still writes, mostly about sailing these days and has a blog at https://www.fit2sail.com, and listen to her podcast about sailing, The Boat Galley.

Keith Larson is a freelance cartoonist/illustrator. He started in school, and has been drawing ever since. Inspired by cartoons, he was also encouraged by his teacher to learn to draw. Being a cartoonist means Keith needed to be aware of the issues that readers were dealing with. Being attuned to people’s emotions at a different level of consciousness is important in pointing out humor. Keith was used to cartooning but he used his illustration skills on the book Life in Pacific Grove. His involvement with the project was unplanned, but he illustrated stories with special black and white ink with gradations of grey, and designed a colorful front and back cover. His family has been in Pacific Grove for more than 100 years, so he was happy to be involved for his family. He enjoyed being out and about in Pacific Grove sketching from the physical environment because of the interactions with people who would stop and talk to him. Keith encourages upcoming artists to reach out for work if they are interested in illustrating which is a great way to give depth to life stories. Visit LifeStoryProfessionals.com to find out more

As a writing coach, Patricia Charpentier has experience in helping people write their memoirs. She talks about goal-setting and timelines and historical timelines as a way to getting people to look at the span of their entire life to choose writing about a portion of it. Then she talks about keeping people motivated, and setting goals. The middle of the writing experience is like walking through mud, and then there is the anxiety in finishing. With humor, Patricia shares anecdotes about how she helps her writing clients reach that goal of printing a book, despite 95% of them never having written before. Through the book, family know get to know them in a way that is different to how they know them now, and get to experience a special opportunity of talking about their life.   Patricia is out of Orlando, and her website www.writingyourlife.org. Video courses are available at www.finishmybookin90 days.com And editing can be seen at website www.Editlikeanexpert.com Visit Storyical at http://lifestoryprofessionals.com

Part 3 is about what it was like for Kjathy Watson to be a participant in a Guided Autobiography class. She not only loved the class, and found the experience to be wonderful, but she has signed up for the 2nd and 3rd classes in the series with Heidi Thorsen, the instructor interviewed last week in Episode 21. Kathy became interested in Guided Autobiography because there is no one to tell her side of the family story, and wants her son and grandchildren to know how their family came to be where they are and the broader family history. She was attracted t the structure that the course offered and the deadlines of weekly meetings. Although it was intimidating initially, Kathy found that her writing style of being more analytical changed, and wanted to not just write her life stories but wanted to help the reader experience what happened. Listen to Kathy’s advice for people starting out on their journey to record their life story. Kathy says that sharing is important for others to understand the history of your family and understand why people are the way they are. The book of stories that inspires Kathy is by Mathilda Butler called Tales of our lives, Fork in the Road 

Episode 21 explores the hidden magic of storycatching with Guided Autobiographer instructor Heidi Thorsen. What happens when you don’t have a computer, have never written before, and join Heidi’s class on guided autobiography? A lot of joy, reflection and acknowledgment from strangers that will keep you excited to write and share stories for 2 months. And Heidi has advice for those who haven’t started writing yet but find it all a bit daunting – start small. Connect with us at http://lifestoryprofessionals.com Connect with Heidi Thorsen at www.tyememoirs.com

Dr Cheryl Svensson introduces us to Guided Autobiography (GAB) a process of writing your life story that is built on life themes and group interaction. GAB was created by Dr James Birren (now deceased). Its not a how to write class. Nobody gives you critical reviews, or suggestions because your story and your voice is what you need to get out. GAB is a journey which is a surprising one for those who take it. Its more memoir because its snippets of life, and its not Autobiographical because people don’t write about the beginning of their life all the way to where they are now. The stories in GAB almost always surprise the students themselves. As Jim Birren used to say “There has never been another you” so everyone has a story to tell. Despite there being people who came to the class thinking they don’t have a story to tell. Your story is your own unique voice and you use your own unique words. Cheryl says that Personal Historians get the stories from the outside in, but is all about getting the stories from the inside out. Cheryl now focuses on teaching other people to do GAB, taking GAB out to the world. She can be reached through the website http://guidedautobiography.com which also has a feature where you can search for GAB instructors by geographical location. Her book co-written with Richard Campbell is available on Amazon “Writing Your Legacy: The Step-By-Step Guide To Crafting Your Life Story”. Please visit us at http://storyical.com to read more about this interview and about Personal History.

Peta Roberts talks about digitizing photos, and tips on how to get the best image possible. The topics covered include 1. Analyzing photos 2. Organizing photos – assembling and a naming convention 3. Scanning – file types and quality and metadata 4. Storing digitized photos and the 3-2-1- rule. Go to http://lifestoryprofessionals.com to download a copy of the National Archives and Records Administration sheet on how to “Analyze a Photograph”.

Today we talk digitizing and organizing images, and why and how to share our special photos. Special guest Cathi Nelson is the founder and CEO of the Association of Personal Photo Organizers which has 1,000 members worldwide to help people with their photo collections. And their home movies. And how to share them for those special anniversaries, wedding, births and any occasions. As a lifelong scrapbooker, Cathi found herself helping friends organize their photo collections who were willing to pay her. We talk about how technology has helped us take more photos, but often contributes to our growing problem of organizing and sharing. Cathi’s first book is available on Amazon entitled “Photo Organizing Made Easy: Going from Overwhelmed to Overjoyed” and was published December 2017. Come visit us at http://storyical.com to find out more. Find Cathi’s websites here http://cathinelson.com www.appo.org www.saveyourphotos.org

Libby Atwater started out as a journalist, although her childhood was full of memories listening to family stories. She started out as a Personal Historian when asked to record a friend’s life story. Her clients were people who were from all walks of life, and achieved different things through their careers, but all who wanted to tell their stories. For those who did not have a budget to print a book, she recorded audio histories. Libby encourages people to talk about their life stories through questions, photo albums, pivotal points in their life, favorite music, most exciting experience, lessons learned and memory joggers such as their favorite car, their career, favorite pet or sport, children, home and family. Libby uses Print on Demand (POD) to self publish. She recognizing the importance of ensuring a book is readable so Libby hires graphic designers and book layout experts. For writing her own memoirs "What Lies Within", Libby talks about her own challenges, including dealing with her feelings. Visit Libby at www.LibbyAtwaterBooks.com Come visit us at www.Storyical.com to find out more about how you can get started writing your memoirs.

Marcia is in her nineties and honestly dishes on what it was like to tell her life story and have it set out in a book. A big beautiful book. She spent two days with Ellie Kahn Personal Historian, who was featured in Episode 15. Ellie videotaped her, then had the audio transcribed, and then ingeniously put together Marcia’s book about her life in a way that Marcia never thought possible for a stranger to do. Listen to Marcia give advice about what to expect and how the memoir process worked for her. Visit us at storyical.com to learn more about life story.

Ellie Kahn has been an oral historian since 1988. She is from the Los Angeles area and has always been interested in life story. Ellie talks about interviewing people who are towards the end of their life, and the cathartic experience it can be for them to telling their life. Their stories are a gift to family and future generations and listen as Ellie makes it happen for her clients by being there for sole purpose of acknowledging and hearing their stories. Ellie Kahn can be contacted though her website www.livinglegaciesfamilyhistories.com. She also has a Foundation established for the education of students in the gift of family interviewing and these curriculum resources can be found at www.tellmeyourstories.org

Phyllis Edwards retired to Pacific Grove in California and looked forward to writing stories of her life. Little did she know that the free memory writing class she attended at the library would get her writing about her new town in a way she never knew existed. Patricia Hamilton (episode 13) convinced Phyllis to be a contributing writer, and an editor, to the town’s book about itself, “Life in Pacific Grove”. Listen to Phyllis tell us about the free lending libraries she writes about in the book, and her advice for getting started on writing those memoirs. Visit Storyical.com to get the Amazon link to see the town's book. And if you want to start your own free lending library, visit this site to get going - https://littlefreelibrary.org/

Patricia Hamilton is owner and CEO of Park Place Publication, and Keepers of our culture imprint. Patricia started writing about personal history when taking journalism in high school. She gravitated into publishing other people’s memoirs after she finished her initial career. Patricia is a book publisher and Personal Historian and describes her job as going from getting the words from a client to putting it on the internet. Today we talk about two things – the magic of memoir writing, and the second is how Patricia got her town to write a book.  Her latest book is not by a single author but sourced by residents and visitors to Pacific Grove. She never planned the project, it just happened! Whilst she was teaching a free writing class, she mentioned to one of the participants that the stories everyone was writing were so good they should be in a book, but would need illustrating. Fortunately, he was an illustrator, and offered to do the illustrating if Patricia published the book. The book is called “Life in Pacific Grove California, Personal Stories by Residents and Visitors”. It’s the seventh book she has done on the same type she started in high school, a book based on a questionnaire Patricia devises. The book has over 400 contributors to the book and is over 500 pages long.  The way people were encouraged to send in their stories was via a web page specially set up to accept their stories. The value of the book woke up the town to the value of telling our stories. A publication date was set, and its release date coincided with celebrating Pacific Grove as Butterfly town. Patricia also talks about the magic of memoir. Memoir can teach us so much about ourselves. The time for reflections lets us look at our lives in a different light, and adult perspective on a child’s struggles for example. Patricia gave advice to those who have not yet started to write their life story. She says that you don’t need to figure it all out before you get started. You might not be able to remember the details of your life at certain stages, but you don’t need to. Just write down one thought, and your brain will do the rest, bringing up memories you thought you had forgotten. Get a ream of paper and keep it in a conspicuous place. When you see it, write down just a sentence or two describing a story that you want to write further about. Pretend the thought police are coming the next day, and tonight you have to write down all the memories you don’t want them to erase. Then when you have the desire, sit down and write out in full about one of those topics. Keep it up and you will have a memoir written. Contact Patricia Hamilton at ParkPlacePublications.com Visit Storyical.com to get the Amazon link to see the town's book. And also visit Storyical.com to see the Hero/Heroine's Journey Memoir Worksheet to get you started writing your life stories

Sabrena Leroy has faced a lot of adversity in her young life. These adversities included bad parents, violent home life, being a foster kid, plus cerebral palsy and other illnesses. Her twitter name is BlessedPoet and she attributes God as the reason she felt a huge weight lifted off her when she wrote her memoir.  She's had family and friends disappoint her but she stayed strong. She dreams of becoming a motivational speaker one day. Sabrena wants her poetry to help other people, to inspire them. Visit me at Storyical.com Her memoir is entitled “Pieces of My Story – Keep Loving, Keep Forgiving and Keep Pushing” because she figured that those three things were what she did to get through hard times. You can see Sabrena’s book here at Amazon - https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_2/143-2594767-3554166?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=sabrena+leroy

Visit us at Storyical.com to sign up for weekly news and advice delivered to your email. Or just come on over and say hi. We have treat for today’s episode. It in three parts, with three different people being interviewed. All of them are talking about Songfinch. Stories of us, songs from them. Songfinch is a company that will make you a song to remember your loved ones as their special memories are put to lyrics.  Great for those of us who cannot speak publicly, and would rather deliver our wedding speech, about the great memories we have of the happy couple, in a song. Well, that’s the inspiration for the founding of the company.I spoke to its co-founder Rob Lindquist, about how the process works. Connect to Songfinch on their website I also spoke to one his studio musicians Jef Joslin, who helps us understand how he writes the tune, and the lyrics.  And then I spoke to a customer, Lisa from Tea Time Socials in Chicago. Lisa went through the process of asking for a song to be written for her. In fact she uses the song as the theme song for her business where she connects kids to each other through stories at tea time socials. Listen to the Team Time Socials song written and composed by Songfinch at the very end of the show. I hope you are inspired about the different ways we can remember each other’s life story. Connect with Lisa at www.teatimesocials.com Connect with Songfinch at www.songfinch.com

Linda Coffin is a Personal Historian who has had a long standing interest in family history and genealogy. She got hooked on family history the first time she explored Gettysburg with her mother. Today she talks about how animating our ancestors lives through stories on what their life and times would have been like is the key to passing on family history to future generations. Linda gives advice on where to research for real data on what was happening where and when our ancestors lived. Connect with Linda at www.historycrafters.com Life Story Professionals welcomes you Copyright 2018 Peta Roberts and Life Story Professionals   l  All Rights Reserved

Anne K hired memoirist Nancy Shohet West to write her mother’s memoir. Anne talks about the process, and what it means to her to understand her mother’s chronology and see the pieces fall into place. The memoirist provided a solid structure to capture her mother’s stories, and kept the project on track. The memoir gave Anne’s mother a better appreciation of her life. Listen to Anne’s three pieces of advice on how to start a memoir. The memoir is “My Life Journey, the Memoir of Phyllis Clark Dearstyne” and is available both at Amazon and through Nancy Shohet West, who can be contacted through her website at http://www.nancyshohetwest.com/memoirs.html

Episode 8 is dual interviews with husband and wife video team Paul English and Alison Crossley. They live in Austinmer near Sydney in Australia. They started out by recording personal life stories and have now branched out into recording business stories as well. Paul films and edits the sound, whilst Alison interviews clients. Paul has a background as a talk show host and got into personal history through recording his mother’s life story. Sadly 4 months later she passed away. Paul walks us through the process of how they meet clients, doing research, building rapport, setting dates, and capturing the ‘gems’ of people’s lives during the filming.  Then they edit, sound design with music, add in photos, cut CDs and post the films online for clients to share and access with passwords. Each client story can take a month of work to complete, from the first meeting to final viewing. Trust is important in helping their clients feel comfortable about telling their stories. In the second part of the episode Alison Crossley talks about how she builds up that trust, and shares her observations about life story. Wait to hear their advice on how to record your life story. Their website can be found online at www.mbmsfilms.com.au, and the Australian professional association can be found at LifeStoriesAustralia.com.au To keep up to date with episodes and to receive tips and advice on how to record your life story, sign up at www.Storyical.com  

Linda Stambaugh engaged Personal Historian Nancy Shohet West to write the memoirs of her father. The project grew to include her mother, and required many more family interviews than planned. What else wasn’t planned was how Linda’s initial expectations were of the book once it was published. It quickly became her father’s bible and the stories in it from his family about him sustained him as his Alzheimer’s disease got worse. Even more surprising was how the initial print run of 85 ballooned into over 200 to date. Linda’s mother was so organized that it made the task of choosing photos for the book seem easy. But they did more than use the photos for the book, many more were included on a CD that was distributed with the book. Listen to Linda talk about the three questions she asked everyone who was interviewed for the book, and the sweet memory her 8-year old grandson contributed. Linda also has some sage advice for getting your project off the ground. The book “Always Room for One More” is available on Amazon.

Martie McNabb is a Personal Historian/ Visual Storyteller, and she takes us on an interesting journey through the story of “things”. Martie tells us how she moved from teaching in New York City to compiling traditional scrapbooks for busy overwhelmed people. She created an event, called Show and Tales, as a way to get people to open up and share a story about one of their favorite objects in a group setting. Her examples and advice on how to use our personal objects as a prompt for sharing stories can be used by everyone to get that conversation going at home.  Connect with Martie at www.memoriesoutofthebox.com, and  check Martie’s events listing at her facebook page https://www.facebook.com/martie.mcnabb I also review the Storycatcher app available on iTunes (no Android version). It was created by Personal Historian and videographer in Silicon Valley, April Bell, and iphone app coder Urs Brauchli. The app is designed to record your stories, allows for simple editing, and the end result is a movie, with an introduction and music and captions and photos. Its all very simple and super easy to use. It has many applications and I step through how the app works. The app allows your projects to be directly posted to Youtube, Dropbox, Facebook, or email them. And I give you a tip about making the most of your sound quality for your videos. 

Brian Moore is the owner of Moore About You, based out of Syracuse, New York. He speaks about how putting together a video biodocumentary for his wife for her 50th birthday spurred him to his own business as a life story professional.  Although the video tribute took some time to complete, Brian explained why directing a video with so many contributors can affect the overall time taken. Once shooting all of the elements of the video is finished, there is a next step. Editing. Its an important step, but one that has to be done carefully to get the best result. After Brian started his business, he decided to put together a podcast that brought to life the stories of everyday people. Not only do all people have a story about their life, but they benefited from having their life story recorded. His podcast “52 Conversations” can be heard on Soundcloud. Brian points out a great example of why we should record our life stories sooner rather than later. Brian can be contacted via his Facebook page “Moore About You” https://www.facebook.com/mooreaboutyou/In the second half of the show, Heather Bucalos reflects on her experience of being interviewed by Brian for an audio memoir. During her interview, Heather spoke of her experience with cancer. One of the benefits for her was being heard, and Heather shared her advice for those who are contemplating recording their memoir.

Gloria Nussbaum is the owner of Real-to-Reel recording personal stories. Armed with a tape recorder and being experienced in radio, Gloria became a personal historian, working in audio. Audio gives two of the most important things for recording stories 1. the stories themselves, and 2. the storyteller’s unique voice. Gloria extensively steps through the process of how she works with a client to record their story on a digital recorder, and gives great advice on how you can start recording your stories. Gloria works across the USA, and can be found at www.real-to-reel.org.

This episode is a double interview of an aunt and her niece. I interview Nancy Shohet West, a Memoir Consultant, and Journalist from Connecticut. Nancy tells us all about how she interacts with people to record their stories. Typically her clients are elderly, and will speak to them over Skype or by phone weekly to record their stories. Often times it is the adult children of the storyteller who hires Nancy to write down their parent’s stories. Nancy explains how she got interested in memoir writing, and gives great advice on how to start your memoir. You can find the books she has written with her clients on Amazon.  Catch up with Nancy on twitter @nancyswest, and at her website www.nancyshohetwest.com Mary Dominick-Comer tells us what it was like for her speaking her memoir. Now at 81 years old, she started just 3 years ago although she initially hired Nancy Shohet West as a personal historian to record her husband’s life story. Mary did not think her life was that interesting, but was surprised that her life was more varied and more interesting than she thought . Although Mary had thought of writing her own memoir, it was easier to speak what she had to say, rather than discipline herself to write. Her diaries helped bring back memories and the hard part is choosing photographs for the book. Mary hopes her grandchildren find her memoir meaningful, and helpful.  Mary articulated like she had never before, and firmly believes that if she had not done what she had done in her life, then she would not be who she is today. Mary leaves us with advice on getting started on your memoir.

Peta Roberts, host, welcomes you to Storyical. She explains the aims of the show, as well as details about herself, and how she started as a Life Story Professional. Storyical will introduce you to personal historians, writers, editors, book designer, and many others involved in recording life story. You will also hear form people who have started writing memoir, and autobiography is a topic to be discussed during future shows.

Today we learn about memoir from Gillian Ednie, a Biographer, and a Life Story Professional. She became interested in life story when evaluating a palliative care project. Gillian saw an improvement in patients, and decide to make it a full time career, and has since recorded many client stories as well as family stories. Gillian talks about the process she goes through from beginning of a client project to the end when people publish their book. Gillian draws on examples from her client list to illustrate the various reasons why people write memoir and the benefits of memoir. This includes the therapeutic benefits, allowing people to process events they could not at the time, and to look back on their lives, reflect and even impress themselves. Will you gain a ‘footing’ in this world by your retrospective? Can you imagine an entire book about you? Print on demand makes it easy to make as many copies of your book as you like so that you give them to friends and family members. Tools like Guided Autobiography give people the tools to write just a few pages at a time, about one theme at a time. Gillian also talks about how she uses visualization, a timeline graph, photographs, songs and milestones events as techniques to remember life events. Paralleling their story with general social history gives more depth and context to a person’s story. Gillian offers advice on how to get started writing your memoir. Connect with Gillian at www.yourbiography.com.au, and the Australian organization of Life Story Professionals at www.lifestoriesaustralia.com.au