Writing a Memoir, Writing a Biography | Write Your Memoir

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. 

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.

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?

Here’s another recipe memoir. Lucinda was my grandmother’s grandmother, so her recipe for ginger cookies is probably the oldest family heirloom we have. I made these cookies one Thanksgiving. In spite of the fact that they are not as rich as the cookies we are used to eating today, the high school kids gobbled them up. Lucinda Frances (Locke) Mock lived from 1846 to 1940.

Lucinda Mock’s Ginger Cookie Recipe by Martha Jewett

Memoirs come in all shapes and sizes. Danny Gregory’s Everyday Matters: A Memoir is a graphic memoir (a memoir told in pictures and words). Danny and his wife, Patti, were happily married and had a 10-month-old son when Patti fell under a subway train and was paralyzed from the waist down.

Everday Matters is a picture-chronicle of Danny’s transformation after Patti’s accident. He realizes he needs to slow down. He teaches himself to draw, and in doing so finds himself looking at the world anew. “You sit and stare at something long enough, and it starts to come to life.” Most people draw badly, he says, because they draw symbols, not what they really see. How could he have missed so much of what was all around him?

Who among us has not had that feeling?

This memoir is a lifetime of eye-opening in just 120 pages. If you’ve ever felt sorry for yourself, if you know someone who is handicapped, if you’ve ever tried to draw or paint, or even if you just love New York City, you must buy this book.

Wake up. What do you really see?

Let me know.

Danny Gregory is the author of several books, including The Creative License. His illustrated journal is read daily by thousands on Dannygregory.com. He lives in New York City with his wife and son.

Was someone in your family a part of history? Recently, at the Self-Publishing Book Expo in New York  I met Donna Nordmark Aviles, a memoirist who has written three books about her grandfather, Oliver Nordmark. Oliver was an orphan in America’s “Orphan Train Movement.”  He traveled from New York City to Kansas in 1906 on what came to be known as an “Orphan Train.”

Even though my parents and grandparents were born and raised in Kansas, they never mentioned the Orphan Trains. In the years between 1854 and 1929, The Children’s Aid Society and the New York Foundling Hospital developed a program whereby up to an estimated 200,000 orphaned, abandoned, or homeless children—mainly in New York City and Boston—traveled by train to adoptive homes in 47 of the 48 states then comprising the United States. The children came to be known as “Orphan Train Riders.”

In Fly Little Bird, Fly! Donna Nordmark Aviles tells the true story of her grandfather Oliver’s early life as an orphan in New York City.  Fly Little Bird, Fly! won the National Best Books 2009 Award.

In Beyond the Orphan Train, Donna Nordmark Aviles describes her grandfather’s life as an Orphan Train Rider. Beyond the Orphan Train won the National Best Books 2009 Award.

Aviles’ third book, Peanut Butter for Cupcakes, focuses on Oliver as an adult. The story describes how he survived with his six children during the 1930s, after the sudden and tragic death of his young wife, Estella. Peanut Butter for Cupcakes was a 2009 Next Generation Indie Book Award Finalist and National Best Books 2009 Award Finalist.

Orphan Train Riders were told not to talk about their past lives. Their collective experiences disappeared from consciousness. Gradually, however, their descendants began to unearth and honor their past.  There is now a museum dedicated to the Orphan Train children, The National Orphan Train Complex, Inc., located in Concordia, Kansas.

Was someone in your family a part of history? Have you asked questions about what happened? Friday, November 27, 2009, is StoryCorps’ National Day of Listening. Its goal is to encourage you to take an hour and record a conversation with someone who is important to you. Why not set aside some time over Thanksgiving to ask, first, whether your loved one played a part in history? If so, what was it like? Were they in a war? Were they dislocated in a natural disaster? Did they take part in protests? Did they witness a famous event?

Let me know how it goes. What questions did you ask?

Happy Thanksgiving!

Selecting food as a memoir topic is always a good way to get un-stuck if you are stuck. Food looms large in our childhood memories and brings back so many associations. For example, I always think of Mom when I see a lima bean. She cooked them until their insides were sawdust. I wrapped them in my napkin. I stuffed the napkin into the top of the table leg. At the top, just under the table, the leg attached to the table with three prongs, making a little nest. I got away with disposing of the lima beans that way for awhile. But my brother, Tom, wasn’t as lucky. He says he dumped his lima beans down the garbage disposal, but Mom found out and served them to him again the next day. 

In “Hungry Men” in the November 9, 2009, issue of Fortune, Daniel Okrent reviews just-released food memoirs by two “world-class eaters.” The books are: Eating by Jason Epstein and Far Flung and Well Fed by R. W. Apple, Jr. (FYI: Neither author has a website. R. W. Apple, Jr. died in 2006.) Check out the titles at your local online or bricks-and-mortar bookstore.

Epstein and Apple apparently had refined palates and enjoyed fine meals. In contrast, the stories (and memories) in my “recipe memoirs” are often better than the food. One of my favorite recipe memoirs is “How Train Wreck Got Its Name.”

What follows is a recipe memoir I have shared with my family, which always brings lots of smiles.

How Train Wreck Got Its Name

My mother, Mary Jewett, used to make a macaroni casserole we called Train Wreck. I thought it was Tom, my little brother, who gave Train Wreck its name. But Tom says Mom always credited George C. Papanicolaou.

George was a Union College student from Greece, who  lived with us at 3 Douglas Road in Schenectady, NY, our home from 1962-1965. George had the third-floor room with the Palladian windows under the front gable. George is now a math professor at Stanford. As Mom told it, George bounded down into the kitchen, looked in the pot on the stove, and said, “Mrs. Jewett, that looks like a train wreck!” To complicate matters, Aunt Ellie (Mom’s sister-in-law, Ellie Jewett) says, no, it was her son, Rick, who christened Train Wreck.

Train Wreck has many variations and names, including American Chop Suey and Hungarian Goulash. Here’s my recipe.

TRAIN WRECK

1. 1 lb. ground beef

2. 2 T oil

3. 1 onion, finely chopped (or more to taste)

4. 1-2 cloves garlic, finely chopped (or more to taste)

5. Other spices. I buy from Penzeys: Penzey’s Italian Herb Mix (1 T),  Penzey’s Granulated Garlic Powder (2 T), Penzey’s Onion Powder (2 T), and Penzey’s Bay Leaf Seasonings (2 t); sugar (2 t); 1 bay leaf (remove before serving); and salt & pepper.

6. 1 26.5-oz. can or  26-oz. jar of spaghetti sauce

7. 1 28-oz. can crushed tomatoes

8. 1 16-oz. box macaroni, cooked al dente and drained (I like shells)

Cook beef, drain fat, and set aside. Simmer items # 2-5 until onions are soft. Add water as needed. The longer you simmer this before adding the rest of the ingredients, the better it tastes. Add the meat and items # 6-7 and simmer at least 10 minutes. Add item # 8. Correct seasoning.

Do you have a food memories that would make a good memoir? Let me know.

I was recently contacted by Shawn Nicholls, the on-line publicist at William Morrow. William Morrow is the publisher of The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind: Creating Currents of Electricity and Hope, by William Kamkwamba and Bryan Mealer. Because I had reviewed Three Cups of Tea, Shawn asked me if I would review The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind.

I’m glad I said yes.

William Kamkwamba grew up in Masitala village, a small village near the city of Kasungu, in Malawi. Poverty, lack of resources, back-breaking work, and a corrupt government were the everyday realities in William’s life. On their own, they would have been enough to break anyone, but on top of them, William also faced drought, famine, and starvation. His dog starved to death, as did at least one of his classmates. There so little to eat, villagers ate maize husks left in the dirt.

And yet, William pursued his dream of building a windmill to create electricity. He was a self-taught tinkerer who repaired radios, and an avid reader. He devoured Explaining Physics, which he borrowed from a small local lending library. With an insatiable drive and an avid desire to learn, but with very little help from anyone else, he eventually built the windmill, which supplies electricity to his family and village. Thist accomplishment may not sound like much, but in Malawi, only 2% of the population has electricity. And William was born in 1988, so he’s only in his 20s.

An old philosophical debate asks the question: are we living in the best of all possible worlds or the worst of all possible worlds? I like to think, as Adin Steinsaltz has said, that we are living in the worst of all possible worlds in which there is still hope. This book is about being inventive in nearly impossible circumstances. It will inspire you. I highly recommend it.

Frank McCourt, author of Angela’s Ashes, died over the weekend. Our friend, Robert Siegel, M.D., studied English with McCourt in a New York City public high school. I remember Robert saying McCourt was supportive, engaging, and fun. As a teacher, he spent time to give a little extra to his students, took them out, got to know them. As Hillel Italie said of Angela’s Ashes in today’s AP obituary, the 1996 book was “perhaps the ultimate case of the non-celebrity memoir.” But underneath its Irish charm,  Angela’s Ashes was an expression of defiance. ”I refused to settle for a one-act existence,” said McCourt. He set out to write about his past, but would not let himself be bound by it. He went on–after 30 years of teaching–to describe his childhood in a book that has been published in 25 languages, in 30 countries, selling millions of copies, winning the Pulitzer Prize. Angela’s Ashes was the beginning of a long and successful second act. An ordinary man, an extraordinary memoir.

My passion is helping everyday people write their personal memoirs. I expect most of these memoirs will be self-published, distributed to family and friends. Unfortunately, times have changed since McCourt published Angela’s Ashes and unless you’re a celebrity, you probably won’t get your memoir published by a commercial publisher. (That’s what so great about all the print-on-demand, self-publishing options, which I will write more about in subsequent blogs).

Frank McCourt taught us that we are all ordinary. But our memoirs can be extraordinary. If you  limit the scope of your memoir to a small topic (e.g., dad’s hearing aids), if you write honestly (it made you mad when he turned them off during fights with your mother), and if you include descriptions of concrete details (his hearing aids used to have a wire going over his head like a headband), your memoir can make the ordinary extraordinary. That’s because no one perceives the world exactly as you do.

Here’s to ordinary people writing extraordinary memoirs. And to saying “no” to a one-act existence. Do you think your memoir will be an act of defiance? Let me know.

When I moved to Japan, my name changed to Maa-sa Jyu-e-tto, and was written in katakana (not Roman letters), the alphabet reserved for foreign words imported into Japanese. Out of deference to the exigencies of Japanese, I (mis)pronounced my name the way the Japanese did. (more…)