“That the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse.”
Walt Whitman
Legacy Memoir
Your verse is already written—in the photographs in the shoebox, the letters tucked in the drawer, the stories you've told at the dinner table for decades. We're here to share your story and preserve your past.
A legacy memoir is more than a life story. It's a portrait, narrative and visual, crafted to preserve the full texture of a life: the memories, the personal artifacts, the voice that makes you unmistakably you.
Unlike a traditional memoir written for a general audience, a legacy memoir is made for the people and communities who matter most to you. It's an heirloom. Something that holds its shape across generations. It preserves the details of your story across multiple media.
At Plumb Creative Books, legacy memoirs are the work we've built our practice around and the format we know most deeply. We approach every project as a bespoke collaboration, bringing the editorial, design, and publishing expertise of a traditional house to a process that centers your story, your timeline, and your vision.
What is a Legacy Memoir?
We believe everyone has a story worth preserving, and because legacy memoirs are often the least likely to find their way into traditional publishing, we provide a path.
We've had the privilege of working with people whose lives span a century of American history, whose careers took them into the sky, and whose families carried their culture across oceans to build something new. Veterans. Immigrants. Professionals whose decades of expertise deserve a record. Those whose memories form a bridge between worlds.
If you have a story and the ephemera (photographs, documents, or artifacts) that belong alongside it, Plumb Creative Books is the right publisher for you. We are passionate about preserving the priceless and irreplaceable moments that have captured one’s unique life.
Your story belongs here.
We function as your publishing contractor: the experienced professional who makes sure every element of your book is built to the highest standard, so you don't have to navigate the process alone or piece it together yourself.
From your first consultation to your finished book, we handle the full scope of legacy memoir production: ghostwriting and editing, photo restoration, ephemera digitization, cover and interior design, printing, distribution, author branding, and marketing support.
The exact services that are right for your project depend on where you're starting and what your book needs. There’s so much we can do together.
We’re your partner in preservation.
Our Titles
What happens when two people from opposite ends of the world bet everything on each other - and win?
We Gambled Our Future is the memoir of María Cristina López Gandarillas-Page: two lives, two cultures, and forty years of a love that deepened every year.
She grew up in Cochabamba, Bolivia, shaped by revolution and early independence, and became the city's first woman architect before emigrating to California with $300 and a willingness to risk everything. He left the seminary after twelve years, arrived in Los Angeles with $500 in his pocket, and set out to discover who he was outside of institutional life. They met unexpectedly, agreed on the terms before they began, and built something neither of them could have planned.
Spanning continents and generations, the memoir weaves together family genealogies, personal letters, childhood memories, and the voices of the daughters, nieces, and nephews who knew Bill and María Cristina as fixtures of warmth and humor in their lives. It is history made intimate, and a legacy offered freely to those still to come.
For anyone who has ever loved someone from a different world, built a family across cultures, or wondered what story they will leave behind.
Also included:
14 pages of family photographs spanning early Bolivia and New York to the present day
Letters written in Bill's own words, offering an intimate and unfiltered glimpse into his heart and mind across the decades
Heartfelt tributes from his daughters and family members, celebrating the man and the legacy he left behind
We Gambled Our Future will resonate with fans of immersive family memoirs, American and Latin American love stories, and stories of strong women who forged their own paths in a world that didn't always make it easy.
AUTHOR: María Cristina López Gandarillas-Page
RELEASE DATE: May 3, 2026
Paperback, 332 pages
Also available as an ebook
“Caminante, no hay camino, se hace camino al andar.”
(Walker, there is no path, the path is made by walking.)
—Antonio Machado
a deep dark black ray of sunshine began as a villanelle written by a nineteen-year-old at the International Society of Poetry convention, and won a publishing contract. The 2003 debut was Julie Kirsten’s first book. Twenty years later, she republished it with new poems and a design that finally matched the work. This omnibus collects it all: the original poems, two decades of poetry written in the spaces between everything else, and the personal essay that earned her the Hermann Schmeling Award for Nonfiction Writing in 2014.
This limited signed edition is only available in the Plumb Creative Books bookshop.
On June 20, 1960, 18-year-old Kirsten Mærsk Dyhr left Copenhagen, Denmark by ship with nineteen other young women and leaders of Girl Scout Troop Absalon II, for a summer with the American Girl Scouts of Manchester, Connecticut.
Growing up in post-WWII Scandinavian society, she experienced an entirely new perspective on personal freedom and independence. Within a culture of big cars, banana splits, and buildings that reached for the sky, "Kis" discovered more than the excess of mid-century Americana. It seemed there were no limits to the dreams they could achieve or the amount of ice cream they could consume.
Through carefully translated letters, diary entries, and digitized scrapbook pages, Kirsten’s story of coming to the United States for the first time captures the spark of independence that ultimately led to her discovering her own American spirit.
Digital download, FIXED EPUB format. Compatible with all major e-readers including Kindle, Kobo, Apple Books, and the free Kindle and Kobo reading apps. Note that is not a reflowable EPUB.
Book a no-cost, no-pressure consultation.
Legacy memoir is the right fit if you're ready to invest in a finished, professionally published book. Not just a document, but an heirloom.
Our clients come to us with compelling stories and the artifacts to match. They want a publisher who will understand what they're trying to preserve and deliver it at a level of quality that honors the material. They're ready to trust the process, engage in the collaboration, and take the time the work deserves.