Last night at the Old Stone House, Brooklyn Reading Works’ January offering, Truth and Oral History, the double life of the interview (curated by John Guidry of Truth and Rocket Science) was a fascinating exploration of oral history as practiced by Gay Men’s Health Crisis, StoryCorps, Columbia University, an author of non-fiction books and magazine articles, and an academic and public health researcher.
Luckily, the snow managed to stay away until well after the show was over making everyone’s return trips home easier.
The participants were wonderful and so was the audience: we had a full house and there was an interesting Q&A. I realize now that we should have had a program for those who want to learn more about these individuals and their work. If you need more information, please get in touch with me: louise_crawford(at)yahoo(dot)com.
[a] Brian Toynes and Luna Ortiz, with Gay Men’s Health Crisis, who have developed innovative community-level interventions that use personal stories about change and resiliency. Luna is one of the few people documenting the “House and Ball” scene that came to general public prominence in the film, Paris is Burning, and in Madonna’s “Vogue – but which has also had a much more complex and international history over the last 100 years.
[b] Michael Garolfalo, a producer with StoryCorps, who will talk about the work of StoryCorps and the importance of collecting and listening to the stories we can tell each other about our lives.
[c] Mary Marshall Clark, Director of the Columbia Oral History Office. Mary Marshall will concentrate on the stories of of 9-11 that her team collected here in New York and the process of working with these kinds of interviews in order to create a tangible and personal history of these events.
[d] Jason Kersten, author of “The Art of Making Money,” a true-crime story of a young counterfeiter and his life. Jason’s interviews with Art and his family reveal a host of issues that a writer must confront when getting so close to the subject while trying to tell a true story that is compelling, informative, honest, and in the end protective of the subject’s own history and privacy.
[e] John A. Guidry, who has used oral history and long-interviewing techniques in academic writing (community organizing and children’s rights in Brazil), community development research (all over the US), and public health promotion (HIV health and social marketing).
The next Brooklyn Reading Works is The Memoirathon: Writing, Photography and Painting as Memory on Thursday, February 17th at 8PM. So mark your calendars for what should be an absolutely wonderful evening. There will be a rare viewing of pieces from Jamie Livingston Photo of the Day project and that will be an extra added bonus to the event!