How it works

I vouch for the telling, not for the event.

When you read a memorate here, you can rely on this much: a real person, known to me, told me this account directly, in a recorded interview, and confirmed the written version before it was published. What they saw, heard or felt is theirs to tell. Whether it was what they took it to be is not a claim this catalog makes.

“Someone told me” asks you to take a writer’s word for it. This process is built so that you don’t have to.

How an account gets here

1. Contact. Someone gets in touch, or I invite them. A message is a request to talk. It is never an entry in the catalog.
2. A short first conversation. I confirm that it happened to them, that they are an adult, and who they are.
3. The interview. About an hour, live, by phone, video or in person, recorded with their permission. I ask the same questions every time, beginning with “Tell me what happened, from the beginning, in your own words.” I don’t suggest words, categories or explanations.
4. The fingerprint. The same day, the original recording gets a digital fingerprint, a code calculated from the file. If the recording were ever altered, the code would no longer match. The fingerprint is published with the memorate. The recording is not.
5. The write-up. Their account in their words, followed by the same set of details recorded for every case. Where something wasn’t said, the field stays blank.
6. Their confirmation. They read the write-up and correct anything I got wrong. Nothing is published until they confirm it.
7. The decision to publish. See What is not published, and why.
8. Publication, with a line stating how and when the interview was done.