TAG, YOU'RE IT!
Earlier this month, it was so much fun to send an email with the subject matter, “Tag, you’re it!” to five unsuspecting cousins. After another edit of my manuscript, I decided to pick one cousin from each clan to give my work a first read before publishing.
The whole thing happened so fast. Well, not really; it was 12 years in the making, and then some. That should be more like my entire life. You see, as a child in the 1950s, I listened to family tales oft-repeated and gained a handsome knowledge of my extended family. After marriage, I then engaged in similar discussions with my mother-in-law, who also had a penchant for family lore.
With the help of a family tree computer program, I compiled our family history in the late 1990s, then sent books with my research, all neatly charted out, to a representative from each family branch. Not wanting the hard work to end there, I developed a yearly newsletter and distributed it to the members of five different family branches. Those newsletters became biannual in recent years. With so much information packed into each newsletter, everyone I met kept saying, “why don’t you write a book.”
The year 2009 is when that next venture took me by surprise. I was a guest on The World of Work radio show, speaking about my genealogy work. When I came home, I said to myself, “I can write a book.” So, I sat myself down, and four months later, I had written the story of my life. I wanted our children to have all the tales recorded, to know their place in the world and their large extended family.
My mantra is that everyone deserves a legacy. I am thankful that through my writing, in the form of my book, blog posts, newspaper, and magazine articles, I continue to do my part in assuring that our family, and also our friends, have their stories in print.
The best part of all my efforts is for my work to be appreciated. Thank you all for your thoughtful comments on my blog posts and responses to my published newspaper and magazine pieces.
When I sent this latest version of my book, after over three months of yet another edit, it was hard to believe the response from one cousin. A short four hours later, Frane wrote, “OMGoodness Sharon - the minute i read this email i "clicked" and i'm on page 199 - …”
After all the work, her added reply, “love the book…” gave me a total sense of peace. Don't hold your breath, but after the five responses are received, I plan to send the book out for purchase…one way or another.
Back cover:
Everyone deserves a legacy. Years of listening to “kitchen talk” resulted in my seasoned and fermented family stories being recorded for all to enjoy.
Reading Kitchen Talk: Sharing Family Tales is sure to start you on your journey to sharing your family tales.
~Sharon Mark Cohen
