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Dan Curtis - Professional Personal Historian
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The source for the latest news, how-tos and tips about the recording and preserving of your life story or the stories of your family.
Recent Posts Tagged With 'interviewing'
It’s Time to Relax, Reflect, and Renew for 2010.
In a previous article, 14 Questions to Help You Build a Better Business, I wrote about the value of using the end of the year for reflection. I decided to take my own advice and use this final week of 2009 to take a break from posting articles an...
Avoid These Three Interviewing Pitfalls.
A good interview is at the heart of any personal history. I train and mentor Hospice volunteers in Victoria on the art of life story interviewing. It’s part of a program being offered by Victoria Hospice. I’ve found several interview...
What’s The Connection Between Reflexology and Life Stories?
I visited my local vitamin shop last week and ended up sampling a free, ten-minute reflexology treatment. My feet felt wonderful. This got me thinking. Reflexologists and personal historians face the same marketing challenge. People have heard abou...
How to Get Mom or Dad to Tell a Life Story.
Sometimes I encounter an adult son or daughter who’s had no success in convincing a parent to record a life story. My experience has been that if people are really reluctant, it may be very hard to nudge them into documenting their lives. I h...
What I’ve Learned About Getting “Truthful” Interviews.
Among personal historians the topic of honesty in interviews is a recurring topic. We want to ensure that our interviews illuminate the depth of a person’s life and not simply skim across the surface. Questions arise about how far we should go ...
Do You Make These 5 Common Video Composition Mistakes?
One of the things that quickly marks a video interview amateurish is poor composition. You can have the very best equipment but if you don’t take time to set up your interview properly it won’t matter what you spent on your camcorder....
How to Interview Someone with Dementia.
Over the years I’ve interviewed individuals with dementia brought about by Alzheimer’s or small cerebral strokes. What I’ve learned I felt might be of value to those of you facing a similar challenge of interviewing someone with d...
5 Solutions for Recording Telephone Interviews.
We all know there are times when the only way to get an interview is by using the telephone. And let’s face it, telephones weren’t designed for hi-fi sound. If you’re interviewing for a book, audio quality is not as critical as for ...
9 Essential Articles on The Art of Interviewing.
One of the key aspects of recording someone’s life story is the need to be a good interviewer. That’s why I’ve written a number of articles on the art of interviewing over the past year. Here are nine posts on the subject from the...
Want To Do A Better Job of Listening?
So when you are listening to somebody, completely, attentively, then you are listening not only to the words, but also to the feeling of what is being conveyed, to the whole of it, not part of it. Jiddu Krishnamurti ~ (1895 – 1986) spiritual ph...
The Life Story Quote of The Week.
We see the world not as it is but as we are. Anaïs Nin ~ (1903 – 1977) was a Cuban-Spanish-French author. We all see the world differently because of our unique upbringing, values and beliefs. I’m sometimes asked if we should be aimi...
Ten Common Mistakes to Avoid When Using Your Camcorder.
For those of you who are new to doing video interviews for a life story, here are some common mistakes to avoid. Failure to read the manual. First and foremost know how to use your camcorder. Read the manual. Practice, practice, practice. And ...
How to Interview A “Challenging” Subject.
I’ve always found it relatively easy to interview someone who is outgoing and an extrovert. The challenge is interviewing someone who is more withdrawn and tends to respond with one word or one sentence answers. It’s like pulling teeth ...
How to Engage Your Readers.
This past week my colleagues in the Association of Personal Historians have been having an interesting conversation. It’s about making your writing more engaging by showing your readers not telling them. To explain, here’s an example ta...
Part Two: How to Find an Audio Recorder That’s Right for You.
Last week I wrote a post about my search for a new audio recorder and some good options in the $600US to $300US range. You can check it out here. This week I’ve focused my research on recorders under $30oUS. Just click on the product for more i...
It’s Time to Honor Our Elders.
The other day in Zoomer magazine I read an interview with the English actress, Emma Thompson. When asked what made her unhappy she said, That, much to our great loss, we’ve turned away from the notion of elders, of wisdom. It’s an absolut...
How to be An Engaged Listener.
In previous posts I’ve written about useful techniques for interviewing: How to Listen with Your Third Ear and Nine Secrets of A Good Interview. “The interview” is a key component of a life story project. Being a good interviewe...
The Life Story Quote of The Week
It seems that the ancient Medicine Men understood that listening to another’s story somehow gives us the strength of example to carry on, as well as showing us aspects of ourselves we can’t easily see. For listening to the stories of others - n...
Warning: Documenting Your Life Story Could be Fatal.
Not really but we’re a superstitious bunch. Step on a crack, break your mother’s back. The number 13, black cats and walking under a ladder - all unlucky. We can add another - writing your life story means death is imminent. It sounds...
No One Dies Wishing They Had More Shoes.
Newsflash: Spending money on things will not make us as happy as spending on experiences. This is the conclusion of recent study conducted by Ryan Howell, an assistant professor of psychology at San Francisco State University. You can listen to Profe...
Get Up And Go Talk to Somebody!
The latest issue of Utne magazine arrived in my mailbox yesterday and I was immediately drawn to an excerpt from a recently published book, The Lonely American: Drifting Apart in the 21 st Century by Jacqueline Olds and Richard S. Schwartz. The aut...
The Life Story Quote of The Week
It often shows an excellent command of language to say nothing. ~ Karol Newlin I tried to find out who Karol Newlin is but had no luck. Maybe someone out there can enlighten me - I’d love to know more about her. Anyhow, I like this quote beca...
Depression Pencils
I was reading the Globe and Mail a few days ago. It’s one of our best Canadian newspapers. Michael Kesterton writes something called “A Daily Miscellany of Information”. It’s my favorite part of the paper - a quirky, fascinati...
4 Action Steps to a Good Life Story Interview.
Conducting a good life story interview is a mix of research, talent, training and a little luck. But you can improve your odds. I’ve been interviewing people for over twenty-five years and I still follow this four point pre-interview plan. R...
How to Listen With Your Third Ear.
Over the years I’ve trained novices in the art of the interview. I’ve noticed that inexperienced interviewers are frequently missing what I’d call their Third Ear. I’m not talking about steroid induced mutant ears. This ...
Do You Make These Interviewing Mistakes?
In a previous post I wrote about the elements of a good interview. In this post I want to look at some common interviewing mistakes. Interviewing a family member or a client for a personal history project involves more than just sitting down with a r...
How to Interview Someone Who Is Terminally Ill.
Over the years I’ve recorded the life stories of a number of terminally ill people. I’m also a Hospice volunteer. I’ve learned some things through my work and hope these tips may be useful if you’re working with someone grav...
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You don’t have to be Oprah Winfrey to get a good interview. If you feel that you really don’t have the knowledge or skill to begin interviewing a family member about their life, not to worry. You can find a number of web sites that will ...
