Hello 🙂
Welcome to The Keepthings memoir project: stories of lost loved ones inspired by the things they left behind. In this curated, edited collection, every week you’ll find a new and wonderful story and meet people who will really stick with you: parents, grandparents, sisters and brothers, aunts and uncles, colleagues, spouses, best friends … all of them now gone but—thanks to their pencils and ashtrays and staplers and perfume and lipstick and cake pans and bobblehead dolls—still making their presence felt, still living on.
The stories at The Keepthings range from laugh-out-loud funny to beautifully bittersweet. The writers range from bestselling novelists to … my mom and dad. 😊😊
If you love to feel a feeling, The Keepthings is the place for you.
About me
I’m Deborah Way, formerly the deputy editor of O, The Oprah Magazine. Oprah has her favorite things; The Keepthings is mine. My house is full of keepthings and I love to read about other people’s. (Btw, I originally designed The Keepthings for Instagram, and if that’s a platform you like, I hope you’ll give @TheKeepthings a follow. It’s a pretty neat reading experience where you get to swipe through each story as though you’re paging through a tiny book 🙂 📖 🙂. And who doesn’t love a tiny book?)
Want to share your story?
Many people find their way to The Keepthings because they’ve experienced loss and grief. If you’re one of them and you have a keepthing you might like to write about, you can find complete submission and photo guidelines by clicking here.
And maybe you’d like to subscribe? It’s free!
By subscribing, you’ll get full access to The Keepthings and never miss a story; each week’s post will go directly to your inbox. You’ll also get the occasional subscriber-only bonus essay by me. And you’ll be joining a great community of readers, writers, grievers, sharers, connectors and all-around fabulous human beings.
