Do you have memoirs on your bookshelves? A friend (thanks Bobbi!) handed me three memoirs from her collection a few weeks ago. Two of them had “national bestseller” scrawled across the top. The other looked like a lesser-known volume, titled Me, Melvin ‘N Andy by Andy Anderson. My friend had picked the book up during … Continue reading
I made a wonderful friend while we were both volunteering at the American Red Cross the other week. He shared with me that he also volunteered as a reader for LibriVox. I had never heard of it, so he explained more (thanks Mark!). It turns out that this terrific organization (www.librivox.org) uses volunteers to record … Continue reading
A friend suggested (thanks Teri!) that my memoir needed more detail regarding the B-17 plane that my Dad served on in the service during World War II. Since the current revision of my manuscript pretty much already contains everything that I learned in discussions with my Dad to date, I’ve spent more time in the … Continue reading
I recently came across the book B-17 Bomber Crew Diary by Edward J. Giering, Major, U.S. Army Retired, as part of my research on B-17 planes for my own memoir. Sure, I had looked up the B-17 fact sheet, and read the details of the various B-17 plane models in reference books. However, it was … Continue reading
I’ve spent at least an hour a night with my 87-year father over the last ~6-years collecting his memories for my storybook. Dad grew up in Stratford, CT, and has shared his memory of his hometown during the Great Depression and World War II. Dad’s father, my grandfather, was friends with Igor Sikorsky, the entrepreneur … Continue reading
I sent the manuscript for my book to an editor a couple of weeks ago. It’s possible that I forgot to tell him that I was writing a memoir, but he was clearly turned off by either the genre, my writing, or both. He wrote back that the book lacked “broad general appeal.” I have … Continue reading
I finished the 3rd draft of my storybook a few days ago. Hooray! I rushed to Staples to have copies printed for my friends and family reviewers. It was exciting right up until the point when I got the bill. Let’s just say that when you have a ~72K word book that ~$.011-$0.22/page can really … Continue reading
I saw a remarkable documentary last night called “Last Flight Home.” The film detailed the efforts of a group called the “BentProp Project,” that searched for lost Word War II planes, and their MIA crew, in the Republic of Palau in the western Pacific. The group had discovered planes in both the water and in … Continue reading
I listened intently as the experts shared their knowledge on television about guns and mental illness in the aftermath of the December 14 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary. But, when an expert on mass shootings declared that an individual was less likely to become a victim of a mass shooting than a victim of a … Continue reading
I learned a little about the history of 1-room schools on the radio show “Backstory with the American History Guys.” http://backstoryradio.org/ This is one of my favorite programs as I just love it when the historians set the record straight – on all kinds of subjects! In a show titled “School Days: A History of … Continue reading
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