How it works
Talk. Review. Explore. Create. Share.
Five steps, and the first one is just answering a question out loud. Everything after it is built from what you said.
Step one
Talk
Rosie asks you a question - aloud, and in large type on the screen. You answer by talking, in whatever order the memory arrives. There is no form to fill in and no box that has to be full before you can continue.
Your words appear as text while you speak. Nothing is a test: you can pause, start the answer again, skip the question entirely, or come back to it next week. A session can last ten minutes.
If speaking is not how you want to answer today, you can type instead. The memoir does not care which you used.
“The House on Ridge Street”
Every answer keeps its recording, so the memoir can be heard as well as read.
Step two
Review
When you finish an answer, you see it written down. This is the moment to fix the things transcription always gets wrong - a hometown, a maiden name, the spelling of a street - and to take out anything you would rather not keep.
Every line is editable, then and later. Nothing is locked, and there is no version of your memoir that you have not seen.
Names are worth the extra minute
The names you correct once are remembered. Rosie will use the same spelling in every later chapter, and can learn how a name is pronounced so it is said correctly when the memoir is read aloud.
Step three
Explore
This is where a memoir stops being a questionnaire. Rosie reads what you just said and offers follow-up questions built from it - the second and third questions a good interviewer would have asked. You tap the ones you want to answer and ignore the rest.
Alongside the interview, three other things are being gathered:
- Photographs and documents. Add them with a title and a note about what they are, so the story behind the picture is never lost with the person who knew it.
- The people in your life. Record who they are and how they are related, and see them drawn as a family tree.
- Memories from everyone else. Invite family and friends to add their own photographs and recollections. Nothing they send appears until you have read and approved it.
Chapter Four
The House on Ridge Street
There were nine of us in four rooms, and I never once thought of it as small. In winter my father banked the coal stove last thing at night, and the last sound I heard was the scuttle going back down on the hearth.
My mother kept the good plates on the top shelf for company that almost never came. When they finally did come - my aunt from Cleveland, that one August - she used them all at once…
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Step four
Create
Your answers are shaped into written chapters - organised, readable prose that still sounds like you, because the words in it are yours. You review each chapter and change anything you like.
When you are ready, the chapters can be assembled into a book: a cover, a contents page, the photographs in their places, and a PDF you can keep, print at home, or have printed and bound as a keepsake.
Common questions
How long does the whole thing take?
There is no “done”. Most people record in short sessions over weeks or months, and the memoir grows. A single sitting is enough to have something real - one finished chapter is a keepsake on its own.
Do I need to be good with computers?
You need to be able to press one large button and talk. The interview is designed for someone in their eighties using a tablet: big type, spoken questions, and no step that punishes a mistake. There is also a simplified phone mode with almost nothing on the screen but the question.
What if my parent is not comfortable with this?
Many families do the first session together - you hold the tablet, they talk. After a question or two most people stop noticing the device. There is more about that here.
What does it cost?
$159 a year, with a 30-day free trial and no credit card asked for at signup. Full pricing.
Keep reading
Your story is already there. Rosie just helps you tell it.
Start with one conversation.
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