by Joanna Klein | Dec 15, 2021
One of my favorite holiday memories from when I was a young girl is going downtown to shop for gifts. Each year, my mom, older sister, and I would get dressed up, make the 20-minute drive downtown, park in a parking garage, and head straight to Thalhimers, the 6-story...
by Joanna Klein | Dec 1, 2021
Several times recently, a term has surfaced and resonated with me: “life review.” You might have heard “life review” associated with end-of-life tasks or near-death experiences. That’s its most common association — or, rather, it was its most common association....
by Joanna Klein | Nov 17, 2021
As I plan for my extended family’s first Thanksgiving holiday together since my older sister passed away six years ago and explore the grab bag of emotions it’s bringing up for me, I wonder about you. What emotions are the various upcoming holidays generating for you?...
by Joanna Klein | Oct 20, 2021
I loved sharing my story with you about subjective memory—about how my daughter and I remember a conflict from her teenage years differently. And, how we’re navigating that difference now that she’s an adult and we’re both writing our life stories. There’s a separate...
by Joanna Klein | Oct 7, 2021
When I was a sophomore in high school, my girlfriend, Sarah, tried to help me recover from a broken heart by passing me the sweetest note during math class. Between hearts and exclamation points, she encouraged me to move on from my longtime crush – who had...
by Joanna Klein | Sep 22, 2021
A big part of what I love about life story writing is that I’m constantly learning more about myself–and not just about my past life, but about who I am at my core. Not every moment is comfortable. There are aspects of my life I avoid writing about because those...
