what the book looks like
Three sizes, each chosen for a job
Prompt & Print and Guided Completion: The 7×10 workbook is the one the storyteller writes in — wide, flat, and generous with space. The workbook’s trim — 7 × 10 inches — is chosen by the handwriting rather than the aesthetics: the smallest size that comfortably fits a full answer on one page, at a ruling that’s kind to an older hand. It is coil bound, so it lies flat while it’s being written in.
Guided Completion: The 8½ × 11 finished hardback is what is sent after the workbook is photographed and returned. Guided Completion carries the storyteller’s own handwriting; Guided Completion Plus adds a typed page facing each handwritten one. See below.
Full Interview and The Written Story: The Full Interview comes back as the same 8½ × 11 hardback, with every answer typed. The Written Story is the one set and bound like any other 6 × 9 book.
The workbook 7 × 10 inches · 58 pages 178 × 254 mm
The finished hardback 8½ × 11 inches · case wrap 216 × 279 mm
The written story 6 × 9 inches · hardback 152 × 229 mm
For scale Hold one up to the screen
The Same Question, Four Ways
“What was your first job, and what did it teach you?”
Prompt & Print
His son chose the question. The page is blank until Walt fills it in.
Guided In his own hand, posted back.
“Sweeping at Dodge Main. 1957, I was 16… Said it was steady.”
Interview
“Sweeping at Dodge Main, sixteen years old… The quiet ones went home angry.”
Written
“He worked in that noise… three more than his father. He has never once mentioned that.”
Large print on any of them
Same words, same column, two sizes. 11 pt is a normal book; 17 pt is what’s actually comfortable to read at low vision — not just the legal minimum.
Peggy Whitfield
Regular edition
11 pt · 38 lines to a page
At a dance at the Plaza, though I’d seen him before that and pretended I hadn’t. He came with a girl called Sylvia who worked where I worked, and I remember deciding he looked bored. He asked me for the last dance, and then whether he could walk me to the bus.
Large print edition
17 pt · 24 lines to a page
At a dance at the Plaza, though I’d seen him before that and pretended I hadn’t. He came with a girl called Sylvia who worked where I worked, and I remember deciding he looked bored. He asked me for the last dance, and then whether he could walk me to the bus.
Two things change in the setting to make that copy actually readable, not just bigger:
- The typeface changes. The book’s usual serif is the wrong choice at this size — fine strokes and bracketed serifs are exactly what’s hardest to read at low vision. Large print is set in a clean sans instead.
- Emphasis is carried by weight, not italics. Italics are markedly harder to read at low vision, so anything that would normally be italicised is set in a heavier weight instead.
The paper changes too — cream and matte, never gloss. Glare disables reading as effectively as small type does.
The natural way to think about it: the standard book goes to the family, and the large-print copy goes to the storyteller — so they can read their own life back, and so can a brother or sister who is the same age. A giant-print setting exists too, for anyone who needs it further — ask, and we’ll quote it separately. The wider ruling in the workbook costs nothing extra. A large-print copy of the finished book, at 17 pt, is an additional copy — $45.
Tell Me Again
You choose the questions. We help with the asking.