Creative nonfiction writers often worry about including family members in their work. And rightfully so; writing about others comes with a huge amount of responsibility and even when done with care, relationships can be damaged. But because we already spend so much time thinking about the pitfalls, and because there are entire thought-provoking anthologies on the subject in which no clear consensus is reached about how best to handle this, I thought we could take a moment to think about the good that can come from writing about family. Because in my experience, there has definitely been some of that too.
A while back, I completed an essay that intertwines a personal story of mine with some anecdotes about my grandpa’s passion for gambling. My mom was understandably curious why I was asking so many questions about her dad. (Hi, Mom; thanks for being a subscriber!) When I told her I was writing an essay, she voiced a concern that I might be sharing private stories that weren’t mine to tell. She was also worried that her siblings might remember things differently than she did.
To begin to address these very reasonable concerns, I decided to interview a couple of her siblings, two of my uncles who inherited their dad’s gambling bug. The conversations we had about my grandpa were by far the longest I’ve ever had with either of these uncles. And many funny stories emerged about my grandpa’s charming quirks. We had lost him only a few years before, so this felt like a beautiful way to remember him together. During each conversation, I sensed that the stories were a pleasure for my mom and uncles to share—that it felt good to know their dad’s story was valuable to me, and that maybe something artful could be made using details from his life.
When I’d finished the essay, I waited nervously for my mom to read it, but she didn’t have as many critical comments as I was expecting. She’s still thinking about the piece, but she can now see how I’m working to carefully thread the needle: balancing the needs of private family members with the needs of the essay, and how I’m doing my best to treat the more complex bits of our story with love, fairness, and humour.
Since researching my grandpa’s life, my role in the family seems to have slightly shifted: from unscrupulous gossip to uncredentialed historian. Family members have started to bring me stories and photos and family trees, and to spend more time talking to me about the past. Writing this essay showed them that I am deeply interested in hearing about their memories. And sometimes I sense that this is a relief—that having someone care enough to listen and set down our story on the page, means that they can also set it down, knowing it will be carried on by others.
Have you had a positive experience writing about family? Tell us about it in the comments!
My grandpa helping me to thread a needle
Some upcoming opportunities
Room Magazine is currently looking for CNF of up to 3500 words for a humour-themed issue. More details here.
BIPOC Writers Connect is a free, virtual conference for Black, Indigenous, and racialized emerging writers to connect with industry professionals and established authors. Apply by July 15 to be considered.
The Bridport Memoir Award is open now until Sept 30 for book-length memoirs. More details here.
The Read at the Fringe Literary Contest allows aspiring writers to share their work with an audience at the The Eden Mills Writers’ Festival (in Southwestern Ontario). Submit a piece of CNF up to 2000 words by June 30 for a chance to win. More details here.
Me, myself, and friends
Writing can feel like a solitary activity, so it’s important to remember that you are not doing this work alone. Many others are at their desks right now, writing their true stories. One of these people is this month’s highlighted writer, Angelo Santos. You can get to know Angelo and his work via the answers he shared with me here:
Angelo, what’s important to you about writing true stories?
When it comes to writing true stories, I've found that there's an exploratory aspect to the process that's often revelatory and surprising. Many years ago I moonlit as a wedding videographer and I used to put together these short cinematic highlight reels for newlyweds, and I remember what it was like to come home after filming a wedding all day and to have absolutely no idea how to start to put the highlight reel together—that is, how to structure it, whether the accompanying music would need to be more upbeat and poppy or slower and romantic, whether there would be a central theme or motif, etc. Invariably though I would find “the story” of each wedding after watching the footage—sometimes it would take a few rewatches and some tinkering with the footage, but I always managed to find it.
For me, writing true stories is almost always like this, at least the way I do it. I often start with a paragraph or a scene, sometimes just a sentence, and then craft a piece iteratively out of that. In this way, I allow each piece of writing to guide me, and I end up just following its lead. Sometimes of course this approach leads me down rabbit holes and I have to dig myself out, but the process is occasionally revelatory, and sometimes it will teach me something about myself, or help me understand how I think about something. As I've become a more experienced writer, I've found the stories in which I lean more into what's difficult to write about—cutting to the bone, as I've heard it described—to be an overall more rewarding experience for me as a writer, and (bonus!) a more interesting read for the reader.
What’s important to you about reading true stories? Who are you reading right now?
I started out by being much more of a reader of true stories than a writer of them. I think this is because there’s a part of me that simply relishes good writing. I find that I get a genuine thrill from reading finely crafted sentences—there's a musicality to it that I can't help but admire. The other draw is that sometimes I see glimmers of myself reflected in other people's stories, and this fosters a feeling that we as humans are all interconnected in this profound way that's hard to describe without sounding schmaltzy. In a weird way some of the very best true stories that I've read make me feel personally known and understood by the writer, even though of course I know this not to be true. I guess there's something comforting to me about knowing that someone sees a part of the world in a similar way, and I notice that this in turn makes me try to be more generous and patient towards the people around me. I think this all has something to do with that old adage that reading fosters empathy for others.
Right now I'm reading You've Changed: Fake Accents, Feminism, and Other Comedies From Myanmar by Pyae Moe Thet War, which is so funny and profound and overall such a great read. Because I'm also studying lyrical writing at the moment, I just reread large chunks of Davon Loeb's The In-Betweens: A Lyrical Memoir and Sejal Shah's This Is One Way To Dance, two books I highly recommend to anyone interested in creative nonfiction with a poetic bent—there are passages from both of these books that I just want to cut out and frame on the walls of my home.
Anything you'd like to tell us about the piece you're going to share?
This piece started with a memory. I grew up in Saudi Arabia, and one day I found myself remembering the prayer calls that would be broadcast from minarets all across the city where we lived at the time. It was such a strong sensory memory for me, and I wanted to capture it on the page. This in turn led to a flood of all these other memories from my time living in the Middle East and I started remembering all of these things about my childhood that felt so different from the life that I've grown accustomed to now here in Canada. And writing about all of these memories ultimately made me embrace this early part of my life in a way that I hadn't before—I realized in writing this piece that as this Filipino kid growing up in Saudi Arabia I had always felt like an interloper, like I didn't belong there. It was only through writing this essay that I realized that something inside me had shifted, because now when I reminisce about the sights and sounds of my childhood there's something about them that feels unmistakably like home.
ANGELO SANTOS was born in the Philippines and has lived in the Middle East, the United States, and different parts of Canada at various points in his life. His writing has been published in Ricepaper Magazine, filling Station Magazine, Magdaragat: An Anthology of Filipino-Canadian Writing, and is forthcoming in the Back Where I Came From anthology, to be published in November 2024. He is currently working on a collection of essays.
Your story resonated with me. I have had a positive experience with memoir writing:
The doctors told Uncle Joe he had weeks, not months, to live. He’d been one of our legal guardians when my father sent us from Toronto - me, my older brothers and sister that is - to boarding school in England. He was in hospital when my two brothers flew to see him, one from California, the other from France, while my sister drove up from Wales where she lives. I remained in Toronto but arranged a video call through his daughter Nadia.
Joe looked paler and bonier but possessed the same benign expression and intelligent brown eyes I remembered. Sometimes he had to rest his arm, and then I saw only the top of his knobbly bald head.
“I’ve had a good life. I’ve no regrets,” he said. “Now it’s time to go,”
“I love you, Uncle Joe,” I told him
“Good bye, my love.”
That would have been it, except that as part of my attempt at memoir, I’d written a story about him driving us four kids up to Wennington, the boarding school we went to in Yorkshire, where he introduced us to the appropriately barmy headmaster. I emailed the account to Nadia who read it aloud to my uncle. My two brothers told me after that the story made up for my absence.
“Joe cried when he heard it,” Nadia said later, “and you have to understand, Lucie, my father never, ever cries! He thought it was brilliant.”
I felt then my memoir writing had served a valuable purpose.
Hi Becky,
Your story resonated with me. I have had a positive experience with memoir writing:
The doctors told Uncle Joe he had weeks, not months, to live. He’d been one of our legal guardians when my father sent us from Toronto - me, my older brothers and sister that is - to boarding school in England. He was in hospital when my two brothers flew to see him, one from California, the other from France, while my sister drove up from Wales where she lives. I remained in Toronto but arranged a video call through his daughter Nadia.
Joe looked paler and bonier but possessed the same benign expression and intelligent brown eyes I remembered. Sometimes he had to rest his arm, and then I saw only the top of his knobbly bald head.
“I’ve had a good life. I’ve no regrets,” he said. “Now it’s time to go,”
“I love you, Uncle Joe,” I told him
“Good bye, my love.”
That would have been it, except that as part of my attempt at memoir, I’d written a story about him driving us four kids up to Wennington, the boarding school we went to in Yorkshire, where he introduced us to the appropriately barmy headmaster. I emailed the account to Nadia who read it aloud to my uncle. My two brothers told me after that the story made up for my absence.
“Joe cried when he heard it,” Nadia said later, “and you have to understand, Lucie, my father never, ever cries! He thought it was brilliant.”
I felt then my memoir writing had served a valuable purpose.
Becky, thank you for your help with my efforts.
All the best,
Lucie
Oh Becky
I love this story of family
So important
You are a magnificent!!!