I want my story written
You talk. I listen. I turn the memories into finished writing.
HOLY SEE RECORDINGS · PAPAL VOICES
Pope Leo XIV at the Tomb of Saint Augustine
Basilica of San Pietro in Ciel d'Oro, Pavia · 20 June 2026. Watch the Vatican News video and hear the official Vatican Radio / Vatican News recording.
This works as well for a congregation as for a person. A retiring pastor, three founding members remembering the building fund, a women's guild recording what it did across forty years. Record separately, send separately, and I will draw them into one account. Nothing leaves this device while you record: listen back, start over as often as you like, and send only when you are ready.
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Story · Faith · Remembrance
Stories should not disappear when the people who lived them are gone.
“And they told what things were done in the way, and how he was known of them in breaking of bread.”Luke 24:35
Most families do not inherit a history. They inherit fragments — a town name, a photograph nobody can caption, a verse somebody underlined, one sentence said at a table and never repeated.
I interview your family by secure video and write those fragments into a narrative your grandchildren can hold and read. Where the record ends, the writing says so.
Guides & manuals · new
Written so you can do it yourself
Thirteen practical manuals, instant PDF download. The free one-page guides in the resource library stay free.
The first step, and the smallest one
The Legacy Interview
One conversation of sixty minutes, by secure video, anywhere in the world. The recording is yours to keep. What I write from it runs to 1,200 finished words — not a transcript, but a finished piece of writing — and comes back to you in 7 days.
What is included
- A short call beforehand, so I arrive knowing who I am speaking to
- One recorded interview of sixty minutes
- The audio file, delivered to you unedited
- A written narrative of about 1,200 finished words, in continuous prose
- Up to two photographs placed and captioned
- Denominational terms, place names and parish records checked and set correctly
- One round of corrections from the family
- Print-ready PDF and Word, yours to copy and give away
Commissioned on its own, or kept as the opening chapter of a fuller family narrative later. Nothing about it obliges you to go further.
Where to begin
Three doors. Most people know within a sentence which one is theirs.
One person
Preserve one person, now
A father who has begun to repeat the same three stories and forget the other forty. A grandmother of ninety-four. Somebody with a diagnosis and a calendar that has stopped being theoretical.
The Legacy Interview → A familyWrite the whole family history
Several people interviewed over several months, alongside the photographs, letters, certificates and family Bible you already have. Written as one continuous narrative, print-ready.
Family narratives → A congregationPreserve a church or society
A centennial, a founding story, a guild nobody minuted, or a congregation about to close or amalgamate while the people who remember it are still in the pews.
Churches & institutions →Limited commissions each season
Write me 250 words about someone.
I will write them back properly.
Whatever you can put down about one person — your mother, a grandfather, a house, a family business, one afternoon you have never been able to forget. 250 words is the length of a long email, and almost everyone has that much in them already.
Because each family narrative requires careful interview and archival work, I take only a limited number of commissions each season. For those who write, I will shape what you send into a finished passage and return it. No fee, no obligation, and an honest answer about what your material could become.
Before anything else
Five promises, made in writing.
Nothing invented
Where your family does not know, the writing says so. No gap is ever quietly filled in.
Your faith, your words
Baptist, Catholic, Orthodox, Pentecostal, Anglican, Mennonite — your family’s faith is written the way your family holds it. I do not adjust anyone’s theology.
Written by Mark
Every commissioned narrative is written and edited by Mark E. Paull.
Completely private
Nothing published, quoted or shown without your written permission. The default is never.
Priced before you pay
A written proposal with scope, timeline and a fixed quotation before any work begins.
The finished work is a continuous narrative in your family’s own voice — not a transcript, not a scrapbook, not a list of dates. Photographs are placed and captioned. Gaps are left visible. The file arrives print-ready in PDF and Word, yours to keep, copy, and give away.
Who this is for
Five distinct doors. Same discipline behind each.
I
Families
Interview-based narratives from living memory, photographs, letters and the family Bible you already hold. Continuous writing your grandchildren will read.
Family stories → IIChurches & parishes
Founding stories, centennial and anniversary histories, pastoral transitions, and the member memory projects that otherwise die with the congregation that remembers them.
Churches → IIIWomen’s groups & guilds
Auxiliaries, altar guilds, missionary unions, circles and women’s ministries. The people who actually held the congregation together, and who appear in nobody’s minutes.
Women’s groups → IVGenealogy groups
You already have the research. What is missing is the readable narrative that sits beside the tree without inventing the gaps.
Genealogy → VMissions & denominations
Missionary family histories, thematic multi-family work, referred commissions, and assessment of collections already sitting in a denominational archive.
Missions →Also available: live talks and workshops for congregations, historical societies and professional groups.
Where you are
Most people arrive here in one of three states.
There is time
You have been meaning to ask
Nobody is ill and nothing is urgent, and that is by far the best moment to start — you get the good interviews, the second and third conversations, and the details rather than the outline.
See how it works →There is a date
Something is coming
A ninetieth, a golden anniversary, a baptism, a church centennial, a memorial service. Tell me the date in your first message and I will give you a straight yes or no about whether it can be met.
Commission it as a gift →There is not much time
A diagnosis, or a move into care
Say so plainly when you write. I reply the same day, and I will tell you honestly what can be done in the time you have — sometimes that is one interview, written up in a week.
Write to me now →Why me
Almost everyone offering this is a kind person with a recorder.
I am a writer. That is the entire difference, and it is the only thing worth paying for. Do not take it on faith — everything is online and free, and the links below go straight to the work.
The same discipline that refuses to invent a missing fact in a family history is the one that refuses to smooth over a missing figure in clinical data. Both are forms of not filling the gap.
- The New York Times
- The Globe and Mail
- The Missouri Review
- Intima · Columbia
- Folklife in BC
- Chicken Soup for the Soul
- STAT News
- Diabetes Care
- Attention · CHADD
A budget idea before we speak
You should know the neighbourhood, even before I know the exact house.
I do not give a firm quotation until I have heard what you want. The pricing page sets out every tier in full, so you can see the shape of it before we ever speak.
Legacy Interview
One 60-minute interview, audio, a finished narrative of about 1,200 finished words, photographs and one round of corrections.
Short family narrative
A small number of interviews shaped into a substantial family story, with photographs and document checking.
Fuller family history
Multiple people, generations, documents and a longer continuous narrative.
These are planning ranges only. After our first conversation and your Story Mixer, I normally send a written scope and fixed quotation within 24 hours. Nothing begins until you approve it.
The name
Why it is called The Augustine Project
“The world is a book, and those who do not travel read only one page.”Traditionally attributed to St. Augustine
Augustine understood a life as something examined, remembered and put into words: not a list of dates, but a human story shaped by family, belief, place, failure, change and memory. What survives is what somebody takes the trouble to record.
That is the work of The Augustine Project. Families and communities tell what happened; documents and memories are checked against one another; and the result is written clearly enough to remain after the people who knew the story firsthand are gone.
Prepare without pressure
Resource Library
Download a preparation guide for the exact kind of story you want to preserve - family, childhood, migration, faith, institutions, difficult memories and more.
Explore the Resource Library →After our first conversation
Your Story Mixer
Set the balance: emotional depth, humour, intimacy, historical context, voice, difficult subjects and the legacy you want the finished piece to carry.
Open the Story Mixer →A prayer carried to Jerusalem · Spring 2027
Your prayer will travel to Jerusalem with me.
I am Mark E. Paull. When I move to Israel in the spring of 2027, I will print every prayer entrusted here, fold and seal it, and carry it with me to Jerusalem.
This is a small, literal act of accompaniment: your words will not be published, searched, interpreted or used for publicity. They will travel privately.
Received by Monday 15 March 2027
Carried to Jerusalem later that month
Prayers received after that date are still read, and still answered by me personally.
The journey begins with
153
A symbolic beginning — the number drawn in at the shore of Tiberias. John 21:11.
Your prayer has arrived. It is here on my side now. It will be printed, folded, sealed and carried.
Reference:
It did not send. What you wrote is still here — please press Send again.
A companion while you write
Search the Bible. Or receive words of blessing.
The tools below run entirely in your browser. What you type here is not sent to Mark unless you separately entrust it in the journey form above.
A word to begin
“Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”Matthew 11:28 · KJV
The words shown are Scripture from the Authorized (King James) Version. The blessing tool offers a passage for reflection; it does not claim prophecy or promise an outcome.
Preserve a Family or Church Story
Use the free tools yourself, or let The Augustine Project help turn interviews, recordings, photographs and church or family documents into finished prose.
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