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.

Beginnings

By Doug Elwell I’ve never been old before so I guess thinking often of endings is a sort of beginning. As I near the end of things, I’m beginning to look back to beginning things. Panda sits on his shelf—the one … Continue reading

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The Gayest Christmas Tree

By Dhyan Atkinson The most beautiful Christmas tree I ever saw was crafted by the gay guys downstairs when I was living in San Francisco. One of them was an airline steward who flew regularly to Hong Kong. One year … Continue reading

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Getting My Mantra

In early 1975 I transferred to Franklin College, a tiny Baptist school in central Indiana where I knew no one. I began slowly to win acceptance into the “hippie circle,” the small subset of the 700 on-campus students who smoked … Continue reading

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A Funny Thing Happened On My Way To The Mikvah

by Melodee Leven Currier According to Jewish law, a child is considered Jewish only if the mother is Jewish because you always know who the mother is, but you don’t always know who the father is.  My parents were like … Continue reading

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If you’re going to change the names, change the names…

Publisher to Make a Change in Lena Dunham’s Book — A New York Times article on 12/10/14 reported that a chapter in Lena Dunham’s book Not That Kind of Girl has caused a kerfluffle. Seems that a guy named Barry thinks he’s the guy … Continue reading

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An Ode to Neville

By Jules Sanderson This is a reflective piece, looking back at my time as a student, sharing a house with one of my best friends. We are best friends, bonded together in that intense, competitive form female friendships sometimes take … Continue reading

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Annie’s Ghosts: A Journey into a Family Secret, by Steve Luxenberg

It’s been a while since I posted a book review! Life hasn’t allowed me much time for reading. But at the recent Association of Personal Historians conference, Steve Luxenberg presented a keynote about Annie’s Ghosts: A Journey into a Family Secret, in which he described a … Continue reading

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Sarah White and Erin Farrell Adamany talk travel writing with Carol Koby

I have been working with Erin Farrell Adamany on her memoir about a fascinating 5-week trip to Morocco with her mother and two children. We were recently interviewed on Carok Koby’s radio show, “All About Living.” The program allowed me … Continue reading

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Mother’s Circus

By Donna Biddle When I went grade school in Terre Haute, Indiana in the 1940s, schools had more leeway as to when you went to school and what could be a reason to let school out early. I particularly remember … Continue reading

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Dave Isay of StoryCorps receives $1million TED Prize

This is a banner day for personal history! (Or rather, yesterday was, when the news was released.) Read about the TED Prize given to Dave Isay here. Why am I so excited about David Isay, StoryCorps Founder, receiving this fantastically generous financial … Continue reading

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