A digital memoir project that reads like a tiny literary magazine, The Keepthings is an ever-growing collection of stories about the dead, occasioned by the objects they left behind—what I call keepthings. I created the project to be a space where lost loved ones can live on and where anyone who writes or reads about them can feel deeply meaningful feelings in community. The dead include old people, young people, parents, grandparents, spouses, siblings, neighbors, friends. The keepthings have included everything from diamonds to a replacement hip. The stories live on Instagram and Substack; I edit and publish a new one weekly. • You can read about the father who always denied any hurt from growing up during Jim Crow, but secretly wrote a 53-page howl that his son discovered after his death. Or the young husband whose love of pop culture led to an epic bobblehead-doll collection—what his widow calls man-toys (“High off his joy, I said, ‘Yes! Buy all these odd man-toys!’”). Or the grandma whose favorite skillet was one of very few possessions that survived her lifelong passion for giving things away (“Mom and her brothers would come home from school to find that their extra clothes had been sent off to cousins in Croatia. In one legendary purge, my grandmother gave away my uncle’s letterman jacket the summer before his senior year. ‘You hadn’t worn it in a week!’ she said.”) • As widely as the stories range in topic and tone, so do the contributors vary: from acclaimed writers (Alice Elliott Dark, Ann Napolitano, Catherine Newman, Patrick Ryan, Hannah Tinti, among others)…to writers with a small-press book or two…to writers with a few publications in journals…to people who don’t consider themselves writers at all but nevertheless have a heartfelt story to share. • Readers respond to the stories in ways writers don’t often experience, posting comments full of appreciation and even awe and often sharing memories of their own. In the eyes of one reader, the stories are “resonating wonders.” Another says, “I’ve gained insight into how I want to live.” Another: “These always are beautifully written, but the emotional thrust of them moves me. Every time.” More than one reader has written some version of: “I’m grateful to have come across this project.” Keepthings stories are stories of connection—between an object and its owner, between a writer and their lost loved one. They’re also stories that make connection—between and among readers and writers—creating a new kind of digital community and putting social media to a meaningful new use.