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Have Your Story Become Part of Our Hoboken History Collection

1 May

Hoboken Library Logo

These are, to say the least, very trying and unusual times we find ourselves in right now. These times will indeed be studied by our descendants in the future, looking back upon how we lived and coped with remaining inside and isolated from one another in order to protect each other, especially our most vulnerable neighbors, from disease.

We can make it a bit easier on future historians right now in a few ways.

Firstly, if you haven’t yet, please fill out the 2020 Census! That’ll make it a lot easier for your descendants to find you later when they’re looking for details about your life. It’ll also help Hoboken get the right amount of funding for the community in the present, so it’s definitely important.

And secondly, I implore you all to record your experiences right now. Write them down in a diary, film them, photograph them. Document what is happening in your home and your life and all around you. Record everything. The Hoboken Public Library would like to hear your COVID-19 stories: we’re building an archive of Hoboken’s response to the pandemic and stories from Hoboken residents are intended to be a big part of that collection! Send us your writing, your photos, your videos, and more, and we will consider them for preservation for historical posterity.

To submit your stories to us, please email them to reference@hoboken.bccls.org or stephanie.diorio@hoboken.bccls.org. In return, we’ll email you a Deed of Gift to fill out to commemorate your donation and make it official.

In the future, we also plan to begin an oral history project, and COVID-19 stories will likely be a big part of that, so stay tuned for details on that, as well! In the meantime, please send us anything you feel we should save for the collection – we’ll be ever thankful, and generations to come will have your story and develop a better understanding of the world we’re currently working together to survive in!

With all my thanks,
Steph Diorio
Archivist/Local History Librarian

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Writing Prompt: Dialogue During the Pandemic

24 Apr
Shakespeare The Complete Works

Image from Hoopladigital.com

Dialogue for me has been one of the toughest parts of writing.  I’ve admired friends over the years who could write plays with funny and natural interaction between characters with ease.  For me one of the things that has helped me in writing dialogue is to pay attention to examples I specifically find compelling.  Of course, Shakespeare is the master of dialogue, but I have to give a shout out to my favorite play Tom Stoppard’s Rosencrantz And Guildenstern Are Dead, which gives a modern take on the classic characters from Hamlet.  The trick to good dialogue is that it should be natural to the ear even without the starts and stops and filler words that often dot our actual speech.

Dialogue itself should primarily be used to convey the mood and tone of the character, rather than a description of how they are saying it.  One thing I’ve heard time and time again when I’m in fiction workshops from instructors is the recommendation to not overly describe how a character is saying something every time, they utter a phrase; it doesn’t have to be yelled loudly or whispered or chortled or gasped.  Using that more sparingly allows for those times it is noted to have more of an impact and keep you from sounding like you are consulting a thesaurus every time your character opens their mouth.

It is an interesting time to be thinking about dialogue since we are interacting less overall with others verbally due to social distancing.  I find myself much more aware when I am talking to someone at a store or at a Zoom meeting than I would have in the past simply being at the reference desk and having multiple interactions with many people on a daily basis.  Try writing a scene that you could include in a fictional piece, memoir, or play about an interaction with a store clerk and shopper.  How do physical barriers and distances affect the way you/they interact?   How do masks change words said now that facial cues are not as notable?  Do interactions now feel more or less genuine?  Have the words we used changed?  What could you create in a story from this short encounter that would work to develop and propel it a long?

Written by:
Aimee Harris
Head of Reference

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