✏️🛠️ How to Ace Interviews With Your Own Family Members

Writing a memoir or family history and dreading the prospect of that convo you know you need to have with a certain someone? Here’s how to successfully interview even the most reluctant relatives.

Happy Leap Day! We’re thrilled to share this StoryCraft post from the always inspiring Kerra Bolton, who is teaching Writing With Your Ancestors: Infusing Memoir With Family History for Narratively Academy next month. And we’re celebrating this special bonus day on the calendar by giving all readers a chance to get 15 percent off any upcoming Narratively Academy class — today only, enter the code LEAP at checkout when signing up for any of our upcoming classes.

Illustration by Chris Kindred

Memoirists dive into an immense ocean of memories. Each wave carries untold stories of our lineage or reveals truths bellowing beneath the silence of warning glances among family members or sepia photographs. 

However, a family interview isn’t as simple as having a conversation with a sibling at the kitchen table about an event that happened decades ago, although it can appear that way. As a memoirist, you are mining the subject (in this case your family) for facts, details, impressions and their perceptions. 

The purpose of a family interview is to actively listen while paying special attention to details that enliven or contrast with your narrative. A family interview can seem daunting because of the potential to uncover disquieting stories. But it can also excavate hidden treasures. Here’s how to master the art and ethics of inherited narratives through family interviews.