​​​The Memoir Project, launched in 2024, features The DC Literary History Center, a virtual collection of research, photos and other information, including scholarly essays and papers, that document the story of the writing community in the nation’s capital from the 1970s to the present.

Memoir or autobiography often is considered one individual’s personal story—sometimes a full retelling of experience; sometimes a partial presentation of significant events that may have helped shaped someone’s world view or impacted, in some way, their relationship with themselves and others.

Personal narratives, which fall in the literary category of creative nonfiction, are critical to the work that Esther Productions Inc. since its inception more than two decades ago. In fact, the organization was established after its founder jonetta rose barras published “Whatever Happened to Daddy’s Little Girl? The Impact of Fatherlessness on Black Women.” Barras considered that book a collective memoir, revealing not just her story about father absence by that of millions of other women in the United States, if not globally. Many women have told barras and others associated with Esther Productions Inc. that that book placed them on the path to personal and familial healing.

 

From the organization’s experience and documented research, it has been proven that literature heals. Literature also inspires and empowers. Restoration or transformation may be the product of not just creative nonfiction, but also fiction and poetry. How many times have you heard someone testify that a book changed their life—often positively and dramatically.

That reality underscores Esther Productions Inc.’s Memoir Project. Millions of people have been transformed by books and/or the authors of those books. There is no timestamp on when those adjustments have occurred. In fact, there isn’t even one for when the life-altering book may have been published.

Consider the impact of “Their Eyes Were Watching God,” by Zora Neale Hurston. How many women were or continue to be inspired by that book, released in 1937, to achieve self-actualization in their professional and personal lives?

The Memoir Project has a direct focus on literature, on writers and on their historical impact on the lives of individuals as well as communities, especially those of color. (For more information click on

THE LITERARY HISTORY CENTER AND PROJECT).