Story starters for your own journey of self-discovery

Enjoy the stories on this page to help generate ideas for your own personal storytelling. The posts feature our friends and Personal Chapters clients. These clients have already embarked on a journey of self-discovery. See how they tell their unique stories.

Compelling stories

Would you like to read about the professional safecracker who served time in prison? While incarcerated, he became a hairdresser, leaving the prison walls on a work release. His personal chapters tell how he later became a millionaire.

Then, there’s the inspiring story of Mamie Hughes, our dear friend, who lived out a lifelong career as a quiet civil rights activist and community leader. Thanks to Mamie’s introduction, we were able to collaborate with the daughter and granddaughter of the late, great Satchel Paige. Client Linda Paige Shelby published a beautifully-illustrated children’s story about the day her dad took the family to the Missouri State Fair.

Not all of the stories here are by or about famous (or infamous) people. You absolutely do not have to be famous to capture and preserve your stories. Take Betty Swisher. She spent a quiet life as a mother and homemaker. But boy was she a creative late-bloomer. She learned to tap dance, paint and write creative stories as a senior citizen. She just decided it was time to put her talents to work and gathered her personal chapters into a charming collection she called 1010 Dovery Avenue.

Her book, and all the books above, are available through Amazon. Some are now also available at bookstores and libraries.

Quarantine Stories

Other stories appear on this page under the heading of Quarantine Stories. These stories grew out of our own personal trials in coping with the Covid-19 pandemic, during the spring of 2020. We began documenting our personal history with a video. Several videos followed that first one. They can all be seen on the Personal Chapters YouTube channel.

We expanded the Quarantine Stories with written blogs.

Then we added instructional videos and writing assignments.

How-to guides

Now, in addition to the writing prompts we give you on other pages of this site, the blog posts below and the videos on our YouTube Channel serve as how-to guides.

We want to help you as much as we can. We want to figuratively hold your hand as you embark on this rewarding journey into your past.

Your own stories are your personal legacy

Some of the authors or subjects of these stories have published books to leave as permanent legacies for their friends and families. Personal Chapters has published dozens of client books. And we can publish yours too, if and when you are ready.

If you have your stories already collected and written,  contact us to learn costs and steps involved in publishing your own book. Email us at personalchapters@gmail.com