Why Keepsake Books
My younger brother and I (pictured here!) have been listening to stories since the 90s. That’s not so long ago :) While Dr. Seuss was one of the GOATS and a personal favorite, I know how much I would’ve loved to hear bedtime stories about our family history too. With our mother’s family from the Philippines and our father’s from Italy, we’ve learned how our parents and their parents carried entire worlds, histories, migrations, sacrifices, and cultural memories much different than our own. As I’ve gotten older and started asking my grandma stories about her early life, I’ve realized how easily these stories disappear with time if never documented. Keepsakes by Katarina offers a way to honor personal history with care and permanence, transforming lived experience into something tangible that can be shared and passed down through generations.
What Distinguishes Us
Unlike automated book services and template-driven storytelling, we don't assign more work to write on your own; rather, we lead the process and ensure the story gets written. We approach each project through a quick, more personalized interview-led process and with a higher standard of literary attention.
Most similar services offered today use AI to generate your book - oftentimes, without telling you. I strongly believe that in order to preserve a loved one’s voice more honestly, we must keep the unique idiosyncrasies that make a person who they are. To do that, we just can’t rely on AI to get that right. Besides, we want to be gentler on the environment too.
So instead, we work with humans. Our small team of artists and poets have a trained eye and ear for design and language, and treat each story with the respect and craftsmanship it deserves.
Katarina La Poll
Katarina has loved paper objects, DIY diaries, and mementos since she was a little girl. She still loves these things! Long before she began working as an interdisciplinary artist, she has been collecting fragments of the everyday — saving ticket stubs, familial handwriting, recording sounds, and preserving the small moments.
After graduating with a Masters of Fine Arts with a focus in poetry, she worked a succession of caregiving and assistant jobs in support of an artistic path, eventually finding her way into ghostwriting. Through years spent interviewing and privately working with household names, Katarina developed a sensitivity for asking the kinds of questions that spark long-forgotten memories and connect personal history to their larger cultural meanings.
Today, Katarina teaches writing workshops and creates intimate, interview-led books for individuals and families who want to preserve the voices and histories of those they love. Her work is guided by the belief that ordinary lives carry some of the most profound wisdom and deserve the same beauty and literary attention often reserved for public figures.