The Library
The Library is where the Memoir Project comes together. Think of this page as its portal.
This is the long-form home of the Memoir Project, organized for continuity, context, and sustained reading. While Substack hosts current writing and reflections, the memoir itself lives here, shaped with the long view in mind.
Substack is where individual memoir entries are published as they are written. That format helps keep a publication fresh and dynamic, but it does not easily support a linear or deliberately composed narrative. The Library exists to do that work: to bring individual pieces together into a coherent whole and to make decisions about structure, sequence, and emphasis as the memoir takes shape.
Each memoir vignette blends the personal—memories, oral history, family stories, and genealogical records—with snapshots of the broader American canvas on which our lives have unfolded. If the project succeeds, it will first serve my children, grandchildren, and family yet to be born. It may also stand as one small contribution to the larger body of work future readers turn to when trying to understand how we lived—and how we might rebuild what has been lost.
A distinctive feature of this project is AI Field Notes, which run concurrently with the memoir entries on Substack. These notes document how I am using AI as a thinking, research, and writing resource—what I am keeping, discarding, struggling with, and learning along the way. They are written in parallel with the memoir itself and linked to the entries they accompany, for readers interested in the human–nonhuman collaboration behind the scenes.
The Library is also where earlier writing has been “shelved” in the Archive (2017–2021). Columns originally published during those years and still relevant are preserved here, at the site where they first appeared. Together, they document a particular political moment and provide context for the memoir that follows. They also serve as a point of comparison for this experimental project, allowing readers—and the author—to judge how the use of AI may shape the work while preserving a consistent voice.
What you’ll find here, above all, is composition in progress: decisions about whether the narrative should be chronological or thematic (or some blend of the two), how individual stories speak to one another, and whether this experiment will ultimately produce a finished memoir. Readers are welcome to follow along—and perhaps even participate—as the story unfolds.