Why Oral History Is Important
From Memories to Memoirs
Meet the Publisher
Our Virtual Office
What's New
The AINLAY Family Tree
Contact TAJ Here
(Japanese Homepage)
AFFLILIATIONS:
Association of Personal Historians (USA), Oral History Association (USA), International Biographical Center (UK), The PEN Club (Japan). Legacy Memoirs is an imprint of Breakthrough Seminars, Inc. (Japan)
Updated September 20, 1999
What I Needed Was Magic, the Ability to
Create Something from Nothing
In June 1997, while attending a course on Visionary Leadership in Santa Cruz, California, I suddenly knew it was time to make the leap. The only thing I was lacking was a point of uniqueness, something that would make it virtually impossible to duplicate the fast, inexpensive, high-quality service I wanted to offer. Something like the "magic" of NLP.
BY THOMAS AINLAY JR., PUBLISHER
NLP is short for neuro-linguistic programming, which is quite a mouthful. It's pretty clear why most people refer to it as NLP. But what has that got to do with publishing personal history?
NLP is the scientific study of how what we think relates to what we say and what we do. If I could better understand the connections between thought and behavior, between words, feeling and actions, I would have the tools needed to create histories that truly preserved the life and breath of the subject, rather than a simple recounting of people, places and events.
What's more, NLP modeling techniques would help me develop a uniquely efficient method of interviewing people. For my model, I choose the "Dean of Family Historians" herself, Ellen Epstein. In 25 years of interviewing, she had perfected the method getting a lifetime of memories onto tape in a single day.
True to form, I did a bit more study before I made the jump to fulltime entrepreneur. I gave six month's notice to my employer, TIME Inc., and arranged to complete my NLP practitioner certification at the University of California at Santa Cruz. I also attended Stanford University's professional publishing course. And I spent several days at the 50th annual book fair in Frankfurt, Germany, investigating print-on-demand technology and other aspects of state-of-the-art publishing.
Then, in the fall of 1998, I finally did what I had set out to do those many years ago. I launched my publishing venture and arranged for the first project to be my mother's own memoirs. It took about three months from the day we did the interview till the day the printed book was delivered. From memories to memoirs in 99 days.
Legacy Memoirs
E-mail: legacymemoirs@geocities.com
© 1999, Breakthrough Seminars, Inc.
This page hosted by
Get your own Free Home Page