What is Personal Saga?

We are all, in some way, shaped by the lives of those who go before us. Some follow in the family’s footsteps, while others blaze their own trails. Whatever course is chosen, behind every individual life, lies other lives that influence who we become: our parents, a local teacher, a national hero, an eccentric relative, a professional mentor. It is their struggles and dreams that shape our own, their stories that captivate our imaginations.

With the formation of Personal Saga, it is our intent to put our creative communication skills to assist those who want to tell and preserve their own life stories, often including family sagas that have spanned geography and years to create a rich tapestry for generations to come.

The process is straightforward. All relevant sources of the personal and/or family history are gathered and given to Personal Saga. The subject of the biography, or the repository of the family’s oral history, makes him or her self available for extensive interviews. These are supplemented by interviews with other family members and friends as deemed appropriate and necessary. Readied with all these resources, Personal Saga produces a first draft manuscript that is then subject to client review. From that input, a second draft is generated, prior to creation of a final galley draft of the book, subject to the client's editorial approval. Personal Saga can provide assistance in binding and reproduction, offering a variety of options.

Personal Saga can be a gift from one person or from many family members. It can be a gift one decides to give themselves. Personal Saga can embrace significant family stories alone, or can be the perfect gift for the man or woman who has, through their singular efforts, built a family business whose story must be told.

So it was for Jerry Stern who revealed to us how he built the enormously successful business called Familian Northwest, by remaining true to the inspiration given him by his father during his boyhood in Depression Era Portland. His was the first life story entrusted to Personal Saga, and his
biography, "A Father's Dream" is the end result.

We believe Jerry's story is typical of the kinds of families upon which America's history is built. Families who have had the courage to keep the same three-hundred acre farm going for four generations. Families who have struggled with the realities of life in the inner city. Families who pass their values down from one generation to another as the world
changes around them.

We believe in the power of one person's passion and courage to affect the world. Luba Tryszynska did that when she saved the lives of 52 children in Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, and Personal Saga was commissioned to write her extraordinary story. It is our commitment to continue writing such stories of substance and inspiration, stories about ordinary lives that impact the world in extraordinary ways. We value each story, big or small, for how they reveal our journey to the present and what we can achieve in the future.

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