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Legacy : A Step-By-Step Guide to Writing Personal History
 
 
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Legacy : A Step-By-Step Guide to Writing Personal History (Paperback)

~ (Author)
Key Phrases: middle adult years, early adult years, Personal Geography, The Sacred Journey
4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)

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Frequently Bought Together

Customers buy this book with To Our Children's Children: Preserving Family Histories for Generations to Come by Bob Greene

Legacy : A Step-By-Step Guide to Writing Personal History + To Our Children's Children: Preserving Family Histories for Generations to Come

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Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Linda Spence's Legacy proves to be just that: the creation of a family heirloom that money couldn't buy. Through a series of thought-provoking questions about each phase in human life, Spence helps readers record their personal history, think back to feelings that any number of snapshots could never capture, and reflect upon their lives. What events occurred during your childhood? What did you like most about school? What do you wish your parents had done for you? The text includes sample essays by the author and quotations by other writers to encourage your muse.

From Library Journal

Aiming to prod the story out of the writer, writing consultant Spence has designed a book of questions and quotes that goes deeply into the hows and whys of the writer's life. The questions are well written and divided by time period, from earliest memories of childhood to life as seen from the vantage point of old age. People will probably want to own and spend time with this book because the project it proposes will take longer than a three-week checkout, but it would do well in libraries where patrons are interested in genealogy or local history as a springboard to getting people to talk about the past. It also has great potential for people working with nursing-home patients. Recommended.?Lisa J. Cihlar, Winfield P.L., Ill.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Details

  • Paperback: 178 pages
  • Publisher: Swallow Press (November 1, 1997)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 080401003X
  • ISBN-13: 978-0804010030
  • Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 6.1 x 0.6 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 9.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.com Sales Rank: #70,271 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

    Popular in these categories: (What's this?)

    #25 in  Books > Reference > Writing > Nonfiction
    #25 in  Books > Biographies & Memoirs > Reference & Collections

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Customer Reviews

12 Reviews
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Average Customer Review
4.3 out of 5 stars (12 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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60 of 61 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars While There Is Still Time!, March 13, 2000
By Mike Donovan (Middle America) - See all my reviews
This book is a valuable resource for families to use when preserving the legacy of a loved one who is dying. My mother has brain cancer, yet has full use of her faculties and has LOVED going through the book of questions and leaving behind a history of her life. We have used the book as a guide for a *very long* audio interview. I ask the questions from the book - she reaches back and tells the stories. It has been a wonderful experience for me and my mother in these days we know will be cut short due to her illness. Preserve the legacy of your loved ones now - before it's too late! Thank you Linda Spence for helping my mother leave us a wonderful gift.
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26 of 26 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Gets You Started, February 27, 2006
By Erika Mitchell (E. Calais, VT USA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)      
This book is a step-by-step guide to writing your life's stories as a legacy for other family members. The author has worked with seniors for many years, gathering their stories and helping them document their life histories. In this book, she presents a simple methodology that anyone can follow to help them get over the hardest step in the process-getting started. In the introduction, she urges the reader to set aside some time and space for writing, in a notebook, on an audio cassette, on a typewriter, or on a computer, whichever is most comfortable and convenient. Then she provides lists of reflective questions to get the juices flowing. The questions are organized by topic, including earliest memories, school life, young adulthood, marriage, children, grandchildren, and later adult years. Interspersed with these questions are quotations from unknown as well as famous published memoirists whose writing illustrates the topic at hand.

Everybody has had life experiences which are fascinating, amazing, or potentially edifying for others. The trouble is, so few of these stories ever get passed on because it's so hard to actually sit down and write them. With this book, Spence makes the task seem easy. Writers can sit down with the book, open to a page at random, and begin writing responses to her prompts. Or they can begin with the first question and work methodically through the book. Each question can easily require an entire essay to answer in full. Once the individual essays start collecting, the raw material is ready to edit into a book. Or, the answers can simply be left as drafts in the writer's notebook to be passed on to others as a legacy. It should be noted that Spence's goal is to help readers to document their life histories in a positive way so as to create a product that can be passed on to other family members, rather than to explore negative memories as a means of self-growth. The book is not about style, grammar, or esthetic qualities of writing. Spence finds it more important for writers to use their own voices naturally rather than to adopt formal stylistic attributes. The book would make an excellent gift for older family members who have stories to tell but just haven't gotten around to writing them down yet.
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21 of 21 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent guide, July 27, 2004
By M. L Russell (Ipswich, MA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
I taped 16 hours of memories using Spence's book to interview my 87 year old father. It was a wonderful way of connecting as he lived more in the past as he aged. He was delighted to have my full attention and I enjoyed hearing his life story. The book helped me to organize material for the interviews. Last year I transcribed, edited and published the memoir as a gift for his children and grandchildren. He had seen a draft of it before his death and was thrilled that his life was recorded for posterity.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Unequalled Cream of the Crop Book in Creating a Family History
I read readers evaluations and comments to decide which would be the best guides to create a "Legacy" Video or oral/visual interview documenting the life-story of my father. Read more
Published 1 month ago by J. Fischman

1.0 out of 5 stars Ok but I've got an easier solution
I started to use this book but then stumbled across this incredible woman who actually comes to your parents and interviews them for a video record of their history. Read more
Published 2 months ago by T. clark

5.0 out of 5 stars Great to Share
The first copy of this book came as a gift from a daughter to my husband. She wanted her dad to tell his life's story. Read more
Published 3 months ago by L. Burbach

4.0 out of 5 stars Making Memoir Writing Easy
Spence has provided a tool for eliciting and recording family history with relative ease. Her book can become a catalyst for coaxing memories even from people who protest about... Read more
Published on January 25, 2008 by Hawley Roddick

5.0 out of 5 stars A GIFT ONLY YOU CAN GIVE YOUR DESCENDANTS
What were you like as a child? What did you think? What did you do?
Not many of us escape these questions from our children and grandchildren. Read more
Published on July 20, 2007 by Peggy A. Whitford

4.0 out of 5 stars Enough questions to last a lifetime
I am teaching a life history class for the first time and am using Linda Spence's book as part of my curriculum. Read more
Published on September 4, 2005 by A. M. Zoeller-Walker

3.0 out of 5 stars Strong General Outline
As a writer who often gets stuck, I enjoyed the prompts in this book as great starting points. The shared stories are also fun to read - not too long but enough to get me started... Read more
Published on June 17, 2004

5.0 out of 5 stars Literally Step by Step
This is a great book for writers whether or not you really intend to write a personal Legacy. I bought it on a whim (because I liked the concept) at Restoration (yes, the... Read more
Published on August 13, 2003 by J. Amedio

5.0 out of 5 stars Quoted from "Booklist" 10/15/97, Vol.94, No.4, pp.380
This review was written by Alice Joyce. As memoirs become increasingly popular reading material, so do individuals of the baby-boomer generation increasingly hunger for details... Read more
Published on November 14, 1997

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