Author Archives: first person productions

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About first person productions

My blog "True Stories Well Told" is a place for people who read and write about real life. I’ve been leading life writing groups since 2004. I teach, coach memoir writers 1:1, and help people publish and share their life stories.

Three Happy Hair Days!

By Nancy Malvin I’m not very good at picking my best/worst anything. Actually, I find it nearly impossible. Given that as my norm, indulge my short list of times I was happiest with my hair. (Interestingly, in describing them, I … Continue reading

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Book Review: Deborah Wilbrink, “Time to Tell Your Personal & Family History”

Deborah Wilbrink of Perfect Memoirs knows how to get to the story, and shares that skill with readers in Time to Tell Your Personal & Family History, which she published in January 2016. The book is equally useful to the personal historian or … Continue reading

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A Happy Hair Story

by Dorothy Ross. (a response to the prompt, When were you happiest with your hair?) Was I ever happy with my hair? Certainly not when I lived in New York. Manhattan’s humid weather reduced my wavy locks to a nest of … Continue reading

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What Does Freedom Mean

By Dhyan Atkinson In the early 1990s, I was working for an up-and-coming biotech company. I LOVED it there! The founders were interesting, funny, highly intelligent people and they hired “their kind of people” from top to bottom. Being in … Continue reading

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When were you happiest with your hair?

Hair. We all have some, or used to. Back in the day, some of us “let our freak flag fly”–used our hair to display our identities, to proclaim we are “of this tribe” and most emphatically “not of that one.” “When … Continue reading

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Reading the Panama Canal

By Doug Elwell She would have been happy to live in Antarctica if that was what he wanted. I can picture her sitting on a chaise lounge bundled up in a parka watching penguins frolic on the ice as they slide … Continue reading

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What does “freedom” mean?

Last week I convened another discussion on “thoughtful aging.” Amid the talk of life’s mixed gifts, Kathryn C. gifted me with an “Aha Moment”–“When I retired, I was giddy I was so happy! Such freedom!” Something rang hauntingly familiar. When Kathryn said … Continue reading

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Flash Memoir: Is that a thing?

Maybe you’ve heard about flash fiction–that genre of complete short stories in less than 1000 words. It’s been around since prehistory–given the difficulty of writing by chiseling on a cave wall, or later, the scarcity of papyrus–it’s no surprise brevity … Continue reading

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A Vision for Pontilly: 10 Years Ago Today

By Sarah White I wrote this shortly after my return from New Orleans in March 2006. Over a March weekend in 2006, I was in New Orleans to assist a professional facilitator with a Vision Retreat process for the hurricane-damaged … Continue reading

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Shame or Guilt?

David Brooks, the columnist I love to hate/hate to love, has done it again–published an essay that cogently covers an issue I’ve been ruminating on for the past half year. The article is titled The Shame Culture. In it Brooks writes, “In a guilt … Continue reading

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