The first step, and the smallest one
One interview. Written properly. Back to you in 7 days.
For the person you cannot afford to wait on — and for the family that is not ready to commission a whole book, but is ready to stop losing time.
Almost every family history that never gets written dies in the same place: not in the research, and not in the money, but in the six months between deciding to do something and doing it. Somebody means to sit down with their mother. Then there is a summer, and a surgery, and a Christmas, and then there is a funeral, and what is left is a name on a stone and four anecdotes that no two cousins tell the same way.
The interview is the part that cannot be recovered later. Everything else can.
The Legacy Interview exists because the full family narrative — months of interviews, archival work, photographs placed and captioned — is the right project for a family with time, and the wrong project for a family with a diagnosis. This is the version that fits inside the time you actually have. One conversation, recorded properly, and written up by a writer rather than transcribed by a machine.
It stands entirely on its own. It also happens to make an excellent first chapter, if the family later decides there is a book to be made. Nothing about commissioning it obliges you to go further, and I will never suggest that it does.
Who commissions this
Four situations, and they are nearly always one of these.
There is a diagnosis
Or a move into care, or a decline that everyone can see and nobody is naming out loud. Say so plainly when you write. I answer the same day and tell you honestly what can be done in the time there is.
There is a date
A ninetieth, a golden anniversary, a retirement from ministry, a baptism. Tell me the date in your first message and you will get a straight yes or no about whether it can be met.
Nobody agrees on the story
The one about the crossing, or the farm, or why the family left the town. One careful interview with the person who was actually there settles more than twenty years of Christmas-table argument.
You are testing me
Entirely reasonable. Commission one interview, read what comes back, and decide about a larger commission with a finished piece of writing in your hand rather than a promise.
Scope
What is included, in full.
The Legacy Interview
- A short call beforehand, so I arrive knowing who I am speaking to and what matters
- One recorded interview of sixty minutes, by secure video — anywhere in the world
- The audio file, delivered to you unedited and yours to keep permanently
- A written narrative of about 1,200 finished words, in continuous prose
- Up to two photographs placed and captioned in the text
- Denominational terms, place names, and baptismal, parish and registry details checked and set correctly
- One round of corrections from the family, on facts and on names
- Print-ready PDF and Word, yours to copy, print and give away without limit
- Delivered in 7 days; faster where there is a medical reason, and I will tell you if it cannot be done
Interviews in English or French. If the person is more comfortable in another language, tell me — sometimes it works with a family member interpreting, and sometimes it does not, and I will say which before you pay anything.
Sometimes added
- A second interview, where one person cannot cover it or a sibling should be heard too
- Additional photographs, letters or documents worked into the text
- Printed and bound copies for the family, at cost
- Credit toward a full family narrative, if you commission one within the year
What comes back
The difference between a recording and a piece of writing.
Anyone can hold up a telephone. What you cannot do with a telephone is turn ninety minutes of digression, repetition, half-sentences and one extraordinary detail buried at minute sixty-one into something a grandchild will read all the way through. That is the work, and it is the only part worth paying for.
Below is an illustration of the difference — not a client’s material, and not anyone’s family. It is here to show the shape of the change, nothing more.
As it comes off the recording
“…no, it was the second winter. Or the first. My mother would know. Anyway he walked, he walked the whole way, they didn’t have — there was no money for the train, and he had the coat, you know, the coat with the — and he got there and the church was locked. Locked! And he waited outside. All night, he said. That was the story. He never told it much.”
As it is written
He walked, because there was no money for the train, and he wore the coat — the good one, the one with the collar — because he was going to a church and a man did not arrive at a church in his working clothes. Whether it was the first winter or the second, the family no longer agrees, and his mother, who would have known, is not here to settle it. What is certain is that he arrived and found the door locked, and that he waited outside until morning rather than turn round. He did not tell the story often. He told it well enough that his granddaughter can still describe the coat.
Notice what is not there: nothing invented. The disagreement about the winter is written into the text rather than quietly resolved. That is the discipline on every page of everything I write.
The process
Four steps, and you are only involved in two of them.
-
A fifteen-minute call
Free, and genuinely without obligation. You tell me who the person is and what the urgency is; I tell you whether this is the right thing to commission, and what it will cost. You get that in writing before anything begins.
-
The interview
sixty minutes by secure video, at a time that suits the person rather than the family. Someone may sit in if that helps them settle. I send the questions in advance to whoever is arranging it, so nobody is ambushed.
-
The writing
7 days. I work from the recording, from whatever documents or photographs you send, and from nothing else. Where I cannot verify something, it goes into the text as unverified rather than disappearing.
-
Corrections and delivery
You read it, correct the facts and the spelling of names, and I return the final files — print-ready PDF, Word, and the original audio. Yours entirely. Nothing is published, quoted or shown to anyone without your written permission, and the default is never.
Straight answers
The questions people actually ask.
How quickly can you do it if someone is dying?
Write and say so in the first line. I answer the same day. The interview can usually be arranged within a few days, and the interview is the part that cannot be recovered later — the writing can follow at any pace afterwards. If it cannot be done in the time available, I will tell you that instead of taking the commission.
What if the person is reluctant?
Most are, for about four minutes. It helps enormously if they are told it is a conversation about their life rather than an interview, and if the family does not stage it as a farewell. If someone genuinely does not want to, I will not push, and I will say so after the first attempt rather than billing you for a second.
What if their memory is failing?
Then we work with what is there and the writing says what is there. Early dementia often leaves the distant memories intact and the recent ones gone, which is difficult for the family and, for this particular purpose, workable. I will not fill a gap because a gap is uncomfortable.
Can we commission the full book later?
Yes, and a good number of families do exactly that. The interview stands as its own finished piece and folds into a larger narrative without being rewritten. Ask on the call about credit toward a full commission.
Who writes and prepares the narrative?
I do. Every commissioned narrative is written and edited by me. I do not advertise it. That is the difference you are paying for, and it is the only promise on this site I would consider non-negotiable.
Where are you, and does it matter?
Montréal, Québec. It does not matter. Interviews are by secure video, and I have written for families who never appeared on the same continent as me. Time zones are the only real constraint, and they are not much of one.
Begin
Tell me who the person is.
Two or three sentences is enough — who they are, roughly how old, and whether there is a date or a reason to hurry. You will get a straight answer the same day, including an honest one if I think you should be commissioning something else, or nothing at all.
Shape it before I write it
Your Story Mixer
Use twelve simple sliders to show me the balance you want: emotion, humour, intimacy, detail, historical context, faith, difficult memories, voice and legacy. Not sure? Leave anything in the middle and ask me to guide you.
PayPal invoicing only. Choose the service, receive the invoice by email, and pay securely through PayPal. ORDER & PAYPAL INVOICE →