More from Author David Sloan

I am honored to share a little bit more about my friend David Sloan.

I met David through the Southern Christian Writers Conference that he and his precious wife, Joanne, founded. He is a prolific writer, educator, and encourager of writers. (Check back tomorrow and read his full bio.)

During breaks at the SCWC, I often see one or two writers talking to David and “picking his brain.” He is always willing to listen, answer questions, and teach writers.

If you missed my posts in July, click on these links: “Meet Author David Sloan” and “Review Writing: 2100 Quotations.

Read another interview with David, “More from Author David Sloan” here.

SJC: It’s hard to jump in and start writing a memoir. What words of wisdom do you have to encourage someone who has thought about writing his or her memoirs but has hesitated?

DS: I encourage everyone to write his memoirs — because they are important. When one dies, think of the amount of knowledge that passes on with him. One of my brothers died in April of 2022, and family members, including his wife of more than fifty years, were uncertain about such details as what he did in school, where he served in the Army, and even where he was born.

Once knowledge vanishes when one dies, it can never be fully recovered unless the person leaves a record.

It wasn’t a grandiose vision that led me to write my memoirs. It was a simple plan. If either of my children or any of my five grandchildren should want to know something about me after I’m gone, I’ve left them a record. If they’re not interested, perhaps years from now a descendent unknown to me will be.

If you want to write your memoirs, you simply need to start writing. You don’t have to have the entire book laid out before you begin. Just think of a time in your life to begin. Then try to write a little each day. As you write, you probably will find it easy to continue writing. That happened with me.

SJC: What were the key challenges you faced when writing your memoir?

DS: I faced several challenges. That might seem like a strange thing to say about a book that was about myself, but there were many things about which I have only fuzzy memories and others about which I have no memory at all. I wanted to assure that the memoirs were as accurate as I could make them. So trying to write a correct account required a lot of research.

About 90 per cent of the memoirs is about episodes and people I remember, but the first three chapters deal with my ancestors. Fortunately, I began doing some genealogical work several years ago. Thus, I had acquired a lot of information about my forebears.

The most difficult people to write about were my parents. They never told us children much about themselves. We had no stories about how they met or got married or their early life together. I have a few letters that my father wrote to my mother in the first years of their marriage, but they left large gaps, and it’s difficult to establish exactly when he wrote them. But from a variety of sources — including my oldest brother and some older cousins — I was able to piece together an account that at least covers the outline of their lives. It is incomplete, to be sure, but at least now my siblings and my children have a brief story about my parents.

I faced a similar problem in trying to reconstruct the first few years of my own life. My earliest memories are of when I was 4 years old, but they are threadbare snippets. I talked several times with my oldest brother. He was born nine years before I ever saw the light of day. He was able to tell me about places we lived when I was young, but even his memory of those years is sketchy. By the way, we had a sister and a brother in age between my oldest brother and me, but they have died. So I couldn’t call on them for information. And, unfortunately, my oldest brother’s recollections of details were sometimes in error.

So I relied on any sources that were available — including the Internet. Even for years after I was an adult, I used websites to do such things as check the calendar for years past to assure that I got dates correct.

SJC: Did you deal with the emotional impact of the situations you talk about in your memoirs as they occurred? In what ways did you find that writing about these situations produced the same emotional impact?

As I wrote about episodes, I found that some stirred my emotions just as they had affected me at the time they had originally occurred.

I remembered, for example, how I felt when I first saw the college coed whom I would marry. She was beautiful. Writing about the experience even reminded me of what the day was like. It was a perfect fall afternoon on the campus of East Texas State University. The summer heat was past, and most students were wearing long sleeves. It had rained over the weekend. Now the air was cool and clear. Only a few white clouds were in the sky. Elections for the student government were in full swing, and I saw a friend campaigning and talking to the coed.

Another vivid recollection was of a bus wreck that killed my teacher, two girls in my seventh-grade class, our principal, and four other students in my small school in Mt. Vernon, Texas. On Tuesday night, September 30, 1959, a truck crashed into the bus carrying students to our junior high football game. It struck the bus on the left side at the driver’s seat. The crash had so much force that it crushed the engine and front axle of the bus.

Besides those killed, the wreck sent twenty-two others to four area hospitals. Some remained hospitalized for weeks. They had concussions, head and body lacerations, and broken bones.

The two girls in my class died just a few hours after the wreck. Audrey Sue Turner, who was just 11, died at 12:01 a.m. in a hospital in Paris, Texas. Jaquieta Raney died at 4:57 a.m. in the same hospital.

They were best friends, and in our classroom they sat at desks next to each other and next to our teacher’s desk. On the bus they were on the seat just behind her. They both were sweet and, I think, pretty. Audrey Sue had dark hair, and Jaquieta’s hair was red. She often tied it in the back with a ribbon.

The first funerals for four victims were held on Thursday, and businesses in Mt. Vernon closed. A joint funeral was held the next day for Audrey Sue and Jaquieta.

SJC: What do you hope readers take away from reading your memoirs?

DS: My answer’s simple. I want my children and grandchildren to know something about me after I’ve passed on. But I also hope the book will encourage other people to write their own memoirs. They would be doing their own descendants a real favor.

SJC: What other writing projects are you working on right now?

DS: I continue to update three of my college textbooks. They periodically take a considerable amount of time. My main focus, though, is with a series titled “Regimen Books Christian Classics.” I take the texts of important books throughout Christian history, correct them, update the language, and edit them in other ways. My most recent have been two volumes of devotionals by the English preacher C.H. Spurgeon, Against Heresies by Irenaeus, and Ecclesiastical History of England by Venerable Bede. In total, I’ve done about thirty books. They’re all available on Amazon.

HERE’S MY REVIEW OF: I Remember: A Memoir, 1947-2022

Read my review of Writing: 2,100 Quotations for Readers, Writers, and Lovers of Writing.
Writing: 2,100 Quotations and other books by David Sloan are available at Vision Press, Amazon, and Regimen Books Christian Classics

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