Preserve Your Story
My dear friend, Agatha Hoff, recently published her book Burning Horses, the story of her mother’s life during WWII in Hungary. Aggie wrote the story from her mother’s point of view, based on the stories her mother had told her over the years. It’s a compelling story, full of despair and triumph, one that not only records a significant part of Aggie’s personal history but also offers others a view of a small, less well known segment of WWII history.
In a similar vein my book Between Two Women contains Carol Cracknell’s story of young woman growing up as lesbian in the 1940s and 1950s in San Francisco. When I met Carol, she was attempting to record her stories on audiotape. Friends had encouraged her to make these recordings, emphasizing their fascination. When I stepped up and offered to interview Carol, collect the stories on audiotape, and transcribe them, she was delighted and relieved. She found it much easier to tell her story to another human being than to record them alone in a room into a tape recorder.
I know there many amazing stories out there, and I’d like to help people collect those stories for posterity. I’m now offering a service to folks who want to preserve their stories. Here is the deal:
- I will record a series of interviews with you in a location of your choosing.
- You can tell me the stories you want recorded and/or I can ask you questions to help you get to the heart of your story.
- Each recording session will be 2 hours for a total of 6 hours.
- I will transcribe the taped interviews and edit them to ensure a smooth narrative flow (e.g. remove the ums and ahs).
- I will give you a printed draft to review for corrections and changes.
- After making your changes, I will provide a final, laser-printed copy of your manuscript, along with a CD of your original interview.
- Longer interviews and/or bound books are possible if you like for additional cost. Or I can assist you in getting the manuscript printed.
If you are interested in preserving your story, leave a comment with your contact info and I’ll get in touch.
(This service is available to clients within a 100 mile radius of Jamestown, CA.)
Last Sunday, I went to a wonderful Yoga workshop by Rocky Heron, called “Journey into Bliss.” The workshop focused on back bending poses which Rocky wanted us to look at as heart opening postures.
I’ve always been intrigued by the body/mind connection that is intrinsic to yoga, so I particularly like teachers who help me see how a pose is connected to the way that I think and/or hold my body. For instance, Rocky spoke about how much of our day is spent slouched forward with our shoulders curved so the chest cavity encircles our hearts. To bend backward is to open and expose the chest area and therefore the heart. Metaphorically the heart is the seat of emotional experience, so opening that area is to make ourselves vulnerable to feeling.
Back bends are my least favorite pose while I adore forward bends. It probably comes as no surprise then that I’m also much more comfortable with thought than I am with feeling. But I knew what the workshop was about, and I was willing– in fact eager– to expand my chest along with my interest and skill in these poses.
Rocky is a very fine teacher, moving the class gradually and expertly into deeper more expansive chest opening postures. I was really enjoying myself, and about 2/3 of the way through the class, I experienced one of those physically transcendent moments. My chest filled with fluid warmth and the room seemed bathed in sea green light. I felt a smile come to my lips. I knew that I had discovered the joy of backward bending poses. I left the class confident that I had a new relationship to chest expansion and perhaps even to emotional vulnerability.
This confidence glowed all the next day. When I dove into the pool for Masters swim practice, I was thinking about how I might apply chest expansion to swimming. About halfway through the workout, I crashed into another swimmer as she was pushing off the wall. Her head hit me full force in the sternum. The pain was excruciating. Somehow I finished the workout, showered, and drove home. But by then, breathing had become painful. Bending forward was nearly unbearable.
Now almost a week later, the injury is only about 50% improved, and I’m learning about chest expansion from a different point of view. To avoid pain, I have to keep my shoulders back and lead with my heart. Forward bends haven’t been fun this past week. Pushing anything away from me (be it a wheelbarrow in the garden or the floor during chaturanga dandasana) is nearly impossible.
And so the metaphor of opening the heart invades my body in a deeply physical way. I wish I had listened more closely to how Rocky explained the Sanskrit word meaning bliss. I suspect it included the pain of my injured sternum as well as that of sea green euphoria.
Reading work aloud at a public event is often our first opportunity to publish our work. And even when we read something that is already in print, we are very likely presenting the material to a new audience. That was the case for me when my sister-in-law encouraged me to read a segment from my book, Between Two Women, at the monthly public reading in Todos Santos, Mexico when I was visiting her and my brother in February 2010.
The reading was in the courtyard of a lovely art gallery. There were about 20 readers and an audience of about 35. Though my book had been published two years before, this was a brand new audience and the experience was exhilarating. So much so, that when I got home I told my writing group that I really wanted to spearhead starting a monthly reading event in our small town. They thought it was a great idea, and we spent one of our meetings planning and dividing to-do tasks among us. On September 1, 2010 we launched First Fridays and this month marks our 12 month.
Here are the things we did that contributed to making First Fridays successful.
- secured a centrally located venue with great ambiance
- secured the endorsement of the local arts council
- advertized: posters, flyers, local newspaper, word of mouth.
- kept it simple: 1 hour, 5 minute slots, once a month.
- divided tasks on reading night, one person doing each task: sign-ups, timer, emcee, sound, clean-up.
First Friday’s continues to attract new readers each month. The audience is always appreciative and folks linger to talk about writing and reading afterward. We are delighted to have created a space for writers to read works in progress or older stuff dusted off for the occasion.
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