Tag Archives: Interviewing

Encore! Personal Historians, Are You LGBT Language Sensitive?

The following article is reprinted with the kind permission of Personal Historian, Sally Goldin.  She is a member of the Association of Personal Historians and can be contacted here. 

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As a lesbian mother and personal historian, I’ve been thinking about the issue of LGBT invisibility in regards to preserving life stories.

Even though LGBT issues have become more visible and acceptable in this society, there are still situations where you can be fired, harassed, or physically attacked for being an LGBT person. I was clearly reminded of this because of the harassment and discrimination a teacher friend of mine experienced in the Houston Independent School District. In this YouTube presentation to the Board of the H. I. S. D. he describes the harassment he encountered.  (The picture clears up at 30seconds). This is a person who had previously been named Teacher of the Year twice in 5 years… Read more.

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Encore! 4 Ways to Get Control of a Runaway Interview.

A weakness common to novice interviewers  is their inability to take charge of an interview.  Interviews frequently look  like a runaway train with the interviewer gamely hanging on to the proverbial  little red caboose.

Taking charge doesn’t mean forcing or dictating the direction of the interview. It’s more like riding a horse. Anyone familiar with riding knows that it requires confidence and a gentle hold on the reins. The same  approach applies to interviewing.

Here are four ways to keep control of your interview: … Read more.

Monday’s Link Roundup.

In this Monday’s Link Roundup there are so many wonderful articles to dip in to. I highly recommend ‘Born This Way’. It’s an important sharing of life stories from the childhood memories of our LGBTQ brothers and sisters. And for those who still treasure getting or sending a handwritten letter, be sure to read Why handwriting matters.

  • Storied: Capture and Share Family Stories. “The goal of Storied is to make the process of capturing and sharing meaningful family stories easy and accessible for people of all ages. With the app installed on your iPad*, you can easily scan in printed photos directly from the iPad, or import them from popular networks like Facebook, and then record interviews with yourself or your family about the events in the photo.”
  • Long Live Paper. “As both a teacher who uses paper textbooks and a student of urban history, I can’t help but wonder what parallels exist between my own field and this sudden, wholesale abandonment of the technology of paper.”
  • Why handwriting matters. “Does handwriting have a value that email and texting can’t replace? In this extract from his new book, The Missing Ink, Philip Hensher laments the slow death of the written word, and explains how putting pen to paper can still occupy a special place in our lives.”
  • ‘Born This Way’: The Radical Possibilities in Sharing Our Stories and Photos of When We First Knew We Were Queer.”This summer was the first time I’d publicly written about my childhood and how difficult it was to grow up gay in a small, industrial city in southern Wisconsin. I didn’t really think too much about it. I was, after reading some particularly vicious comments about queer people, simply sharing what I’d been through in hopes of feeling less hopeless and helpless…Tomorrow an amazing new book will reach stores and add over 100 voices to this conversation. Born This Way (Quirk Books) was edited by DJ Paul V. and inspired by his website of the same name, a photo/essay project for gay adults of all genders to submit their childhood pictures and stories and share their memories of growing up LGBTQ.”
  • Skype for Interviews. “From The Conversations Network, Doug Kaye and Paul Figgiani explain the tips and techniques for recording high-quality interviews using Skype.”
  • Eleanor Roosevelt’s Controversial Love Letters to Lorena Hickok. “In the summer of 1928, Roosevelt met journalist Lorena Hickok, whom she’d come to refer to as Hick. The thirty-year relationship that ensued has remained the subject of much speculation, from the evening of FDR’s inauguration, when the First Lady was seen wearing a sapphire ring Hickok had given her, to the opening up of her private correspondence archives in 1998. Though many of the most explicit letters had been burned, the 300 published in Empty Without You: The Intimate Letters Of Eleanor Roosevelt And Lorena Hickok (public library).”
  • How to Use Twitter to Grow Your Business. “Can Twitter actually help my business or is it a complete waste of my valuable time? This was the very question I asked myself only a few months back. Perhaps you’ve pondered the same?…This article reveals how bestselling authors and business professionals use Twitter to grow their businesses and reveals ideas you can employ to achieve Twitter success.”

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Encore! How Prepared Are You to Interview Terminally Ill Clients?

Life continually challenges us with the unexpected.  And only a fool would attempt to prepare for the unforeseen. It does help though to go into uncharted territory with our eyes open to potential risks. Interviewing terminally ill people for their life stories is  satisfying, worthwhile, and often moving work. Though it does come with precautions… Read more.

Encore! What Do You Do When Facing a Reluctant Family Story Teller?

How many personal historians have found themselves in this situation? You have an enthusiastic client,  an adult child who really wants her mom or dad’s  life story told, but the parent is reluctant…Read more.

Encore! Are You Asking the Courageous Questions?

Marc Pachter founded  Living Self-Portraits at the Smithsonian and was its master interviewer.  In his TED talk below he shares the challenges of getting a good interview.

…if all you’re going to get from the interviewee is their public self, there’s no point in it. It’s pre-programmed. It’s infomercial, and we all have infomercials about our lives. We know the great lines, we know the great moments, we know what we’re not going to share, …

Marc recounts several interviews and how he cut below the surface conversation to have his subjects reveal the truth of their lives…Read more.

Encore! 30 Sites That Will Boost Your Personal History Performance.

How many of you could use some further training to enhance your personal history skills? I know I can!

Whether you’re starting out or well established,  here’s a select list of sites that can help.  I’ve combed the Internet to bring you some of the best…Read more.

Encore! Do You Make These 5 Common Audio Mistakes?

Imagine yourself in this situation. You’ve just completed videotaping an hour-long interview. It was  nicely lit and framed. And the interview itself was fantastic! Excitedly you rush back to your editing suite,  put up your interview to screen, and then the shock. The picture looks great but the audio is terrible.There’s nothing you can do to fix it. The interview is ruined!

I know that getting flawless sound all the time is nearly impossible. But you can improve the odds if you avoid making these 5 common audio mistakes…Read more.


Encore! Come to Your Senses and Unlock Childhood Memories.

How much do we remember from our childhood? This is one of the questions examined recently by Canadian research scientists.

I’ve just finished reading Blanks for the Memories  which highlights aspects of the research originally published in the journal Child Development…Read more.

Encore! Life Stories and Palliative Care. When Time Is Running Out, What Do You Focus On?

What part of a Life Story do you focus on when it appears patients may have only a few weeks or days to live? Patients may initially indicate that they want to talk about the broad spectrum of their lives from childhood to the present. The reality, unfortunately, is that they’re not likely to have enough time to complete such an undertaking. Here’s what I’ve suggested…Read more.