Tag: Storytelling
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Awakening bad memories helps shape your new life
The intern at the hospital who was accustomed to treating survivors of barroom brawls had no idea how violated I felt. Not wanting to order tests, he brushed off my headache. “Of course it hurts,” he said. “You were kicked in the head.”
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Reach deep into memory to build a scene
The best way to share my nerdiness is to show scenes, bringing readers into the halls of my high school to see for themselves. And yet when I try to describe my life in high school, I feel like I’m trying to peer into the hidden memories of a stranger. Who was that guy? Fortunately,…
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Fact and fiction of a girl in the Chinese Cultural Revolution
Like the Rosetta Stone, I tried comparing these two different versions of the same events. My comparison of Xujun’s multi-dimensional attempts to tell the story of her life gave me some of the clearest understandings I’ve had so far about how story and memoir intertwine.
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Follow that car! How drama reveals the inner story
One Saturday, we drove south on 17th Street, made a left on to Ontario, and started east towards Broad Street, when a large man ran out between two cars and flagged down the car. He knocked on the window, yelling at us to open up, gesturing down the street towards some unseen quarry. It was…
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Listening Is An Act of Love
by Jerry Waxler Last week, when I was visiting WHYY studio in Philadelphia I saw the mobile StoryCorps van and interviewed facilitator Mike Rauch about what StoryCorps does. It intrigued me so much, I went back to Philly last night to hear Dave Isay the founder of StoryCorps speak at the National Constitution Center. He…
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Tell stories for more thankful holiday gatherings
by Jerry Waxler The holidays bring together a mélange of generations, family units, and significant others, bonded by blood, marriage, love, and shared life experience. Then why did I feel more dread than joy? I didn’t understand my own reactions to the holidays until I started writing family stories, and then the answer leapt off…
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