#52snapshots–Week 44

In the November/December 2021 issue of Poets & Writers, author Victoria Chang shares her journey in writing her new book, Dear Memory: Letters on Writing, Silence, and Grief, published by Milkweed in October. As part of her process, Chang collected documents and photos that intrigued her. She writes, “In a few weeks I had a stack of longing.”

That’s how I feel about family history. I long to know how it felt to live in the shtetl, to come to America, to assimilate, to live through the Great Depression, to hear the news that siblings and others died by bullets or in the camps. There is no one left to ask. All I can do is scour documents, photos, and objects and piece together a narrative.

If you share in this longing, please join me for a free, 90-minute Writing Family History workshop on Sunday, November 14, at 2 pm ET. A four-session workshop series will follow beginning January 9. A four-session workshop series begins January 8 for Memoir. If interested, comment below or send an email to barbaradkrasner(at)gmail(dot)com.