After a long holiday weekend we have the last of our reading lists which provides context for our third Conversation Starter session at the National Preservation Conference.  Come prepared for a great discussion on Friday, November 2, for “Telling Richer Stories of Place.”

The stories we tell about historic places are not always easy and we have learned they are not always complete. But preservationists are rededicating themselves to finding the ways and words to link past to present, story to mission, and historic sites to the community. This session brings together an inspiring group of advocates who have found ways to tell a richer story of place and in so doing build a constituency and a plan for its preservation. You will be challenged to re-examine your own story of place and share the obstacles and opportunities you are confronting.

Moderator: Estevan Rael-Galvez, National Trust for Historic Preservation, Washington, D.C.

Speakers: Keith Magee, The National Public Housing Museum, Chicago, IL; Edgar Garcia, City of Los Angeles; Michelle Magalong, My HiFi, Corona, CA; Aissia Richardson, Uptown Entertainment & Development Corp., Philadelphia, PA

Have a question for the panelists? Submit them in the comment section below.

• Sites of Conscience: Opening Historic Sites for Civic Dialogue (Foreword by Liz Ševčenko and Maggie Russell-Ciardi, The Public Historian, February 2008)
• The Struggle to Control the Past: Memory, Commemoration, and the Bear River Massacre of 1863 (By John Barnes, The Public Historian, February 2008)
• Sharing Villa Grimaldi’s Expertise at the “Active Preservation of Memory” Workshop at Former Detention Centre in Agdz, Morocco, (2009 Margarita Romero, Vice-President of Corporación Parque por la Paz Villa Grimaldi (Santiago, Chile) interviews Silvia Fernandez, Programmes Manager of the International Coalition of Sites of Conscience)
• Confronting Contentious Pasts: The Challenges of Interpreting “Controversial” Subjects at America’s Historic Sites (By Dwight T. Pitcaithley, Forum Journal, Spring 2004)
• Deviant History, Defiant Heritage (By Gail Dubrow, Progressive Planning, March/April 2001)
• Why Do So Few Blacks Study the Civil War? (By Ta-Nehisi Coates, The Atlantic, 2011)
• An Integrant Part: Using Cultural Landscapes in Interpretation of Difficult History, (By Elizabeth Goetsch, Rethinking Protected Areas in a Changing World: Proceedings of the 2011 George Wright Society Conference on Parks, Protected Areas, and Cultural Sites)
• Preserving the Sites and Telling the Story of Japanese American Internment (By Amy Cole & Anne Gailliot, Forum Journal, Spring 2004)
• Conflicting Landscape Values: The Santa Clara Pueblo and Day School, (By Rina Swentzell, Places, 1990) Excerpts from “Wisdom Sits in Places: Notes on a Western Apache Landscape’" (By Keith Basso, Senses of Place)
• Panelist Edgar Garcia on the significance of the historic Plaza in downtown Los Angeles
• Edgar Garcia on the preservation of the Self Help Graphics building in East LA.
  LA Conservancy | The Eastsider LA | PreservationNation
• Stronger Together: A Manual on the Principles and Practices of Civic Engagement (NPS Conservation Study Institute)