Thursday, September 10, 2015

On telling stories to the next generation

"People are hungry for stories. Storytelling is a form of history, of immortality. It goes from one generation to another."
Studs Terkel
The man was a literary giant, and I remember sitting in the corners of concrete-lined stairwells in between college and university classes cramming his work so that I could somehow absorb even a sliver of his writing style. Sure, I was dreaming, but the dream of telling stories that outlive us lives at the core of everyone who writes.

This creative thing is powerful. And I've had great mentors, even if I never had the privilege of meeting all of them.

1 comment:

Kalei's Best Friend said...

I am so glad my mother's cousin was so proactive in archiving the family history.. His mother was the eldest of 3 siblings- one was my Grandmother.. he archived them in the USC Library in the Asian section... Oral recordings done by the eldest told me things I was never told to by my Grandmother... Even tho their lives were hard- they were migrant workers and traveled wherever the work was... I learned the eldest's strengths, intuition, tenacity were above any one that I have ever met.. I questioned my mother about the history and she seemed angered that I would want to know... I told her, its our history- whether it be hard to take, it should be embraced.. It made the eldest sibling who she was..