Lisa Weiss

April 30, 2026

Then He Kept Writing

Inside: On record-keeping, pink ballet shoes, and a Chicago heiress who was afraid of being forgotten

Hello!
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I'm interested in whose stories land in libraries and museums, and whose don't. We sometimes dismiss our own stories before they're even written. We underestimate our own potential impact. Other people do that to us, too.

Last Saturday at the Newberry Library in Chicago, I led a writing workshop around this idea. The Newberry's Instruction and Outreach Librarian spread objects across a table including a 14th-century book belonging to a man named Pepo, a wool merchant in Florence. On one page, Pepo wrote about his business, the birth of a daughter, and listed ten family members who died of the Black Death. June and July, 1348. Then he kept writing.

This wasn't unusual for Pepo's time. Merchants kept everything in the same book: the wool, the weather, the deaths. The personal and the professional weren't separate records. At some point, we split them apart. And then most of us stopped keeping either one.

When I asked everyone in our workshop to take out objects they'd brought from their own lives and write about them with the same attention they gave to Pepo's book, pens moved fast. Writing poured out. I believe it's because most of us never decided our own stories deserve the same careful attention we give to things behind glass.

The people whose stories end up in archives aren't necessarily more interesting than you are. They just wrote things down.

This month's issue is about the practice of finding words for what you actually think, know, and remember. Before someone else decides whether it matters.

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In this issue:

Practice Pink ballet shoes Reading A little more social Plus To die and not be forgotten

Practice

The pink ballet shoes

In the workshop, Maria Tallchief's pink ballet shoes sat on a table, signed, slightly worn, from the Newberry's collection. Some people in the room already knew of Maria: Maria Tallchief was Osage, and America's first major prima ballerina. Others had never heard her name. Both reactions made sense to me. Last night, I dreamt I was a ballerina after seeing these shoes. But my hair and bun were a mess! Your writing prompt: Write from the shoes. Ten minutes, don't stop. What do these pink satin shoes spark in you?

Reading

A little more social
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I've been working with behavioral scientist Nicholas Epley on the launch of his new book A Little More Social. Nick's research with more than 30,000 people makes the case that we consistently underestimate how much other people want to connect with us. We hold back. We assume we'd be a burden. We're wrong.

It's a useful book for anyone doing work that involves other humans, which is most of us. Pre-order here. And if you'd like to bring Nick to your organization, reach out!

Plus

To die and not be forgotten

Chicago heiress Julia Newberry was seventeen when she wrote in her diary that she'd probably live comfortably and die forgotten. She was wrong. But not for the reasons she would have expected. I wrote about Julia's diary for the Newberry's blog. ​ Read it here. To die and not be forgotten

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