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Susan Fales-Hill

July 28, 2010 By martha_jewett Leave a Comment

Like physician-memorist, Abraham Verghese, who turned to novel writing with Cutting for Stone, memoirist Susan Fales-Hill, author of Always Wear Joy: My Mother Bold and Beautiful, a memoir about her mother, Josephine Premice, has just published a novel. One Flight Up is about four successful, urbane women (in the vein of Candace Bushnell's Sex and the City and Terry McMillan's Waiting to Exhale) but with a twist. Three of her four characters are married!

A 21st Century take on the marriage plot?

Filed Under: Memoirs To Read

Even A Bridge Can Be A Memoir

July 23, 2010 By martha_jewett Leave a Comment

Can a bridge be a memoir? Heck, yes! Add bridges to the list, along with all your other stuff from my last blog. Nj.com and the "New Jersey" section of The Star Ledger reported this week that Paul Bartick, of South Orange, New Jersey, is working with Miriam Sumner, Lynne Smilow, and the Village of South Orange to name a bridge over the Rahway River in South Orange after Jonathan Felsman, a beloved South Orange community leader who died at the age of 57 of cancer on July 9, 2009.

Jonathan’s community initiatives included the South Orange Performing Arts Center (SOPAC), the town soccer league, building baseball dugouts at Meadowland Park, beautifying the Rahway River waterfront, and programming ideas at the public library.

“He didn’t give a damn about people’s reactions to his ideas,” says Bartick. “He sold his vision by capturing people’s imagination. Then he took action to make his shared vision a reality. Jonathan really was the bridge that brought people together to make things happen. That’s why the bridge is such an apt memorial.”

Have you built or created something that is a memoir? (A wall, a bridge a window, a shrine, a monument, a statue?)

Write to me about it. Send me a photo.

Filed Under: Techniques and Tips Tagged With: architecture as memoir, Jonathan Felsman, Lynne Smilow, memoir ideas, memoirs, Miriam Summer, Ondine Landa Abramson, other forms of memoir, Paul Bartick, personal histories, personal history, Rahway River waterfront New Jersey, Richard Khavkine, South Orange New Jersey, South Orange Performing Arts Center (SOPAC), stories, storytelling, stuff, stuff as memoir, The Star Ledger New Jersey

Your Stuff, Your Memoir?

July 14, 2010 By martha_jewett Leave a Comment

I used to think memoir consists of three things: (1) writing, (2) in the first person, (3) about a thin slice of a person’s life. “The reader doesn’t want the whole iceberg, just the tip,” to paraphrase Russell Baker.

Now I realize memoir is much broader. First of all, you have a lot of other objectives–besides the act of writing itself–when you create memoirs. You want to:

record family stories
research family history
find lost relatives
socialize with lost relatives once you've found them
discover your DNA
collect and preserve family data
get over something traumatic
tell the story behind a family memento
create personal documents (video, audio, shadow boxes, etc.)
get rid of something heavy which you've been carrying around (secret, imposition, demand)
catalogue, organize, and archive family documents, photos, and memorabilia
take the sting out of something painful
save and identify family heirlooms
capture family information that would otherwise be lost.

I now have a working definition of memoir which is much more broad. Memoir is the communication of what you want to remember and what you want to be remembered. Which leads me to two more points. First, you can get really creative and use any of the following as the basis of a memoir:

letters you quote
recipes
random memories
your hopes for the future
a secret you no longer want to keep
family sayings
something that always got on your last nerve
a mystery you never figured out
funny family anecdotes
what you want your legacy to be
describing what’s going on in an iconic family photo
a list of your favorite things and why
describing how you got around a long time ago
how a business used to make money
your worst vacation
how you kept the house cool in the summer
the most expensive thing you ever bought
a portrait of a relative using your five senses (see, hear, feel, taste, smell).

Second point. You don’t have to write at all. Lots of your "stuff" can be turned into a memoir:

Photographs
Video
Audio
What things cost
Collages
Political buttons and pins
Jewelry
Fabrics
A telephone bill
“Shrines” you create
Scrapbooks
Songs
Guns
Music
Portraits
Paintings
Statues
Pottery
Drawings
Furniture
Clothing
Games
Puzzles
Tools
Maps
Drawings
Self-portraits

Even a packing list from 50 years ago could be the basis for a great memoir. So, I ask you:

What do you want to remember?
What do you want others to remember?

Tell me about the memoir you create. Send me a photo.

Filed Under: Techniques and Tips Tagged With: childhood memories, food memoirs, genealogy, how to write a memoir, memoir, memoir ideas, memoir storytelling, memoir topics, memoir writing, memoir writing tips, memoir-with-recipes, memoirs, personal history, recipe memoirs, Russell Baker, stories, storytelling, why write, write your memoir, writing

Memoirs By Doctors

July 11, 2010 By martha_jewett Leave a Comment

Abraham Verghese recommended in yesterday’s Five Best in The Wall Street Journal five of his favorite books by physicians, including two memoirs. Adventures in Two Worlds is A. J. Cronin’s memoir about being a young physician in a Welsh mining town. The Puzzle People by Thomas E. Starzl is the memoir of the pioneer transplantation surgeon.

Filed Under: Memoirs To Read, News, Tweets Tagged With: Abraham Verghese, Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese, Five Best Column in The Wall Street Journal, memoir, memoir by physicians, memoir ideas, memoir writing, memoirs, The Wall Street Journal, write your memoir, writing

Visiting A Place That No Longer Exists

July 9, 2010 By martha_jewett Leave a Comment

When you write a memoir about fishing, writes William Zinsser in Writing About Your Life, your subject is “the transaction between yourself and fishing—as a sport, as a pastime, as therapy, as a buddy experience, as a solitary experience, as a food-gathering experience, or whatever drew you to it.”

The same thing is true when you write a memoir about a place that no longer exists. What is the transaction between you and the place? What is its pull? What memories do you bring? What is the real place like now? Who used to live there? Who lives there now? What is still there? What is gone?

Barbara Krasner visited her grandmother’s ancestral home, Ostrów Mazowiecka (Ostrova in Yiddish) in Poland while she was doing research for a young adult novel that takes place in nearby or Zaromb (Yiddish). Her 30-photo exhibit of these Jewish communities which no longer exist, “My Home Is Gone—Remnants of Jewish Poland,” will be shown at the JCC of Metrowest in West Orange, New Jersey September 12-October 31, 2010.

What is the pull of a place that no longer exists? How do you write about it? Let me know.

Filed Under: News, Techniques and Tips, Tweets Tagged With: ancestors, ancestral home, Barbara Krasner, how to write a memoir, JCC of Metrowest West Orange New Jersey, Jewish communities that no longer exist, memoir, memoir ideas, memoir storytelling, memoir topics, memoir writing, memoir writing tips, memoirs, My Home Is Gone—Remnants of Jewish Poland, photo memoirs, shtetl, why write, Willian Zinsser, write your memoir, Writing About Your Life, Zaromb Poland

The Iconic Photo

July 6, 2010 By martha_jewett Leave a Comment

I once found a photo tucked inside a book at an estate sale. The photo showed a Model T in ruins, destroyed by what looked like a head-on collision. The photo jumped out at me. I took it the man, about my age, who was running the garage sale. His mother had just died and he was selling the contents of her house. I handed him the photo. "This looks important," I said.

He stood transfixed, staring at the photo. "Mother told us about that crash. Both she and Dad survived it. But I never knew if the story was true."

My mother-in-law, Maxine (Shanbar) Marshall, has an iconic memoir photo. Her photo shows an apartment building (not hers) being moved from its location near Poplar Street in Chelsea, Massachusetts. The reason? The construction of The Mystic River Bridge (now the Tobin Memorial Bridge).

A picture is worth a thousand words.

Why not make your memoir writing easier? Why not organize it around an iconic photo?

Filed Under: Maxine Shanbar Marshall, Techniques and Tips Tagged With: Boston Herald, Chelsea Massachusetts, childhood memories, family portraits, how to write a memoir, Maxine (Shanbar) Marshall, memoir, memoir ideas, memoir storytelling, memoir topics, memoir writing, memoir writing tips, memoirs, memory writing triggers, Mystic River Bridge, personal histories, personal memoir writing, stories, storytelling, Tobin Memorial Bridge, why write, write your memoir, writing

Feige's Fourth of July 1905

July 1, 2010 By martha_jewett Leave a Comment

My husband’s maternal great-great aunt, Feige Cohen, spent the Fourth of July of 1905 in New York harbor, waiting to clear immigration. She was onboard the S.S. Statendam (built for Holland America by Harlan & Wolff Limited, Belfast, Northern Ireland, 1898). The Statendam sailed from Rotterdam, Netherlands, on June 24, 1905, and arrived in New York on July 2, 1905.

Were there fireworks in the harbor? Did Feige see them? Not sure. But thanks to Ancestry.com, we know she was released by immigration on July 5, 1905, at 1:10 pm, to be met by her brother, Harry, who paid her fare. Feige, who gave her last place of residence as “Ostrow,” could read and write. She was 17 years old and had $15 in her pocket.

One-hundred years later, Feige’s great-niece Maxine (Shanbar) Marshall, my husband’s mother, cruised on the successor Statendam (same name, different ship), now a luxury cruise ship for tourist travel.

Have you taken a special journey on the Fourth of July? Do you have a travel story that happened on the Fourth? Let me know.

And have a great Fourth of July!

Filed Under: Ancestry.com, Feige Cohen, Genealogy, Research Tips, Sample Memoirs, Tweets Tagged With: Ancestry.com, Feige Cohen, Fourth of July 1905 Immigration, Holland America, New York harbor, Ostrow Poland, Rotterdam Netherlands, S.S. Statendam

From Baghdad to Bombay

June 8, 2010 By martha_jewett Leave a Comment

I heard memoirist Pearl Sofaer speak recently. Pearl was born and grew up in Bombay, India, of a Baghdadi Jewish family. She currently resides in the San Francisco Bay, California, area. Pearl is author of the memoir/cookbook, Baghdad to Bombay: In the Kitchens of My Cousins (Paper Jam Publishing, 2008; $18). The book includes traditional Jewish recipes from Iraq and India. Pearl interviewed her extended family to collect the recipes in the book, which include: Iraqi Borscht, Fish Curry, Baghdadi Jewish Chicken Soup, and Luzina, to name a few. Pearl told stories about what the traditional Baghdadi Jewish community was like in the first half of the 20^th century, and what it was like to grow up in Bombay. At the end of her presentation, Pearl sang traditional songs using Middle Eastern Jewish (Mizrahi) melodies, which sounded so exotic to our western ears. Her CD is Gems of Mizrahi Liturgy.

Are musical memoirs next? Downloadable mp3 memoirs? M-memoirs?

Filed Under: Memoirists Martha Has Met Tagged With: Baghdad to Bombay, Baghdadi Jewish community, Bombay, Jewish community, Jewish cooking, Jewish food, Jewish recipes, Pearl Sofaer, Traditional Mizrahi Jewish melodies, www.pearlsofaer.com

Tom Jewett's Ton Cake Recipe Memoir

April 5, 2010 By martha_jewett Leave a Comment

Tom Jewett, my younger brother, builds and flies airplanes. Tom is a lifelong aviation expert-amateur. When he was a little boy, he told Mother he wanted to learn how to read in order to build model airplanes. He went on to earn an aeronautical engineering degree from Purdue. In the photo above, he's at Centennial Airport in Colorado, showing off the upgrades he recently completed in his Long EZ. Tom has an April birthday. On his birthday, he always has Ton Cake, his favorite. Here is Tom's recipe memoir about Ton Cake:

Ton Cake Recipe Memoir by Tom Jewett

Filed Under: Advice, Recipe Memoirs, Sample Memoirs Tagged With: Centennial Airport Colorado, German Chocolate Cake recipe, home-built airplanes, how to write a memoir, Long EZ Airplane, memoir writing, Purdue University, recipe memoirs, Thomas E. Jewett

A Favorite Memoirist Turns Novelist

April 4, 2010 By martha_jewett Leave a Comment

Memoirs by physicians have have the added layer of insight which comes from a trained physician’s eye. Abraham Verghese’s 1994 memoir, My Own Country: A Doctor’s Story, is one of my favorite physician-memoirs. Verghese published a wonderful first novel last year, Cutting for Stone:

Review of Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese

Filed Under: News, Tweets Tagged With: Abraham Verghese, best-selling memoirs, Cutting for Stone, memoirs by physicians, My Own Country: A Doctor's Story, self-published memoirs