Try one question

One question. Your chapter, within the hour.

This is what a parent or grandparent gets every week. Try one yourself: pick a question, answer it out loud or by typing, and the chapter comes back to your inbox.

1 Pick a question

Through the front doorWalk me through the front door of the house you grew up in. What is the first thing you see?If you are not sure where to start: Which room was yours, and who did you share it with? What was the one thing in that house nobody was allowed to touch? What did the house sound like at night?First paycheckWhat was your first job, what did it pay, and what did you buy with the first money you earned?The first carTell me about the first car you drove, or the first one in the family.

2 Tell it, out loud or typed

Tap record, talk for as long as you like, then tap stop.

Where the chapters end up. Our sample book.

For someone you have been meaning to ask: fifty-two questions, one a week, every chapter read by a person, and a hardcover a year after the first. A year of stories is $99, paid once.

The chapter you get here is the machine's first draft, which is where every chapter starts: spelling and flow fixed, nothing added. In the real thing a person reads it against the word-for-word transcript before it goes in the book.