Calendar of Events
Sense of Place Story Intensive (Online)
The Sense of Place Story Intensive
August 27 • Online
A full-day retreat for developing a story that matters to you. Bring a story, idea, memory, or experience and work with it through a series of sense of place practices designed to help you move from inspiration into form.
2026 National Conference: Engaging Place, Shaping Futures Interpretation Canada
From Facts to Meaning: A Sense of Place Approach to Inclusive Natural and Cultural Heritage Interpretation
Register here : https://interpretationcanada.ca/event-6763407
Interpretation often begins with facts, chronology, and resource knowledge—but meaningful visitor experiences emerge through something more: atmosphere, sensory awareness, layered stories, perspective, memory, and lived connection to place.
In this workshop, participants will:
- identify layered interpretive opportunities within a landscape
- explore ways different visitors connect to place
- experience practical tools for creating concise, meaningful, and inclusive visitor experiences adaptable to their own sites
Using Historic Fort Henry as an immersive case study, this full-day training introduces a sense-of-place lens as a practical framework for expanding interpretive possibilities across natural, cultural, and historic sites.
Participants will first learn the core concepts of the sense-of-place lens and explore how interpretation can move beyond information delivery toward experiences that invite reflection, relevance, curiosity, and meaningful connection.
Participants will then work collaboratively in the field to brainstorm and design inclusive techniques for interpreting layers of time, story, perspective, and sense-of-place connections that resonate with diverse visitors and learning styles. Particular attention will be given to uncovering overlooked interpretive opportunities, and shaping layered narratives into concise, cohesive visitor experiences.
The training concludes with guided discussion focused on how participants can adapt the tools, exercises, and approaches explored during the session to interpretation at their own sites.
2026 AASLH & NCPH JOINT CONFERENCE
2026 America Association of State and Local History and the National Council on Public History Joint Conference: The Work of Revolution, Providence, RI
Session Title: From Resource to Resonance: Crafting Impactful Visitor Experiences.
https://aaslh.org/annualconference/2026-annual-conference/
Fall Farmhouse Writing & Wellness Retreat
The Fall Farmhouse Writing and Wellness Retreat
Sept 24-27 • Colrain, MA Learn More About the Retreat →
NAI : Sense of Place Story Intensive (Online)
Sense of Place Story Intensive
This workshop helps participants transform site knowledge into meaningful Sense of Place Stories they can share with visitors. Working with their own site material throughout the training, participants experience a practical process for viewing a resource through the layers of time, story, and perspective it holds. They explore places, objects, and histories through personal, cultural, historical, and natural lenses, uncovering new story possibilities, shaping ideas into concise, thematic stories, and crafting experiences that help visitors discover their own meanings and connections.
Sense of Place Deep Dive (Online)
August 25 & 26 • Online
A two-day immersive experience exploring how deeper relationships with place can become sources of stories, meaning, insight, and creative work. Experience an arc of practices to gain a deeper relationship with a meaningful place.
Sense of Place Story Intensive January 19-20, 2027 10:00 am-2:00 pm Pacific/12:00–4:00 pm Eastern Instructor: Erica Wheeler, Sense of Place Consulting NAI CE Credits: 8
About the Workshop
Design and deliver a meaningful Sense of Place Story using the places, objects, and histories your site holds. Participants learn a practical process for seeing the deeper layers of time, story, and perspective within a resource, transforming site knowledge into meaningful narratives that foster stronger visitor connection.
This workshop helps participants transform site knowledge into meaningful Sense of Place Stories they can share with visitors. Working with their own site material throughout the training, participants experience a practical process for viewing a resource through the layers of time, story, and perspective it holds. They explore places, objects, and histories through personal, cultural, historical, and natural lenses, uncovering new story possibilities, shaping ideas into concise, thematic stories, and crafting experiences that help visitors discover their own meanings and connections.
Through a sequence of guided practices that develop both content and delivery skills, participants create, refine, and deliver a complete Sense of Place Story they can use in interpretive programs or media. Along the way, they strengthen narrative structure, identify interpretive themes, refine storytelling and delivery techniques, and receive peer feedback that strengthens both story and presentation.
Participants leave with a developed Sense of Place Story, greater confidence in story craft and delivery, and practical tools they can continue using to discover and develop future stories in their interpretive work.
Training Content
Understanding the Sense of Place Story Approach
Seeing resources through layers of time, story, and perspective
Crafting sense of place narratives and interpretive themes
Delivery practice, peer feedback, and refinement
Learning Outcomes
After completing this course, participants will be able to:
Apply the Sense of Place Story Approach to their own site resources.
Identify meaningful stories within places, objects, events, and histories.
Develop a complete Sense of Place Story from their own site material.
Strengthen narrative structure, thematic clarity, and story delivery.
Apply practical story development techniques to future interpretive programs and media.
Registration Rates
$575 Regular Registration
$500 with NAI Member Discount
Course Schedule
Day One: From Site Knowledge to Meaningful Story
Introduction to the Sense of Place Story Approach
Seeing the layers of time, story, and perspective within a resource
Finding story, meaning, and significance within site knowledge
Crafting narrative structure and interpretive themes
Story development and outlining
Day Two: From Story Craft to Visitor Connection
Finding connections through lived experience
Storytelling and delivery techniques
Developing and refining a concise Sense of Place Story
Guided practice, peer feedback, and refinement
Final reflection and next steps
Instructor Information
Erica Wheeler is a nationally recognized interpretive trainer, keynote speaker, award-winning singer-songwriter, and founder of Sense of Place Consulting. For more than a decade, she has delivered her signature Sense of Place and the Art of Interpretation training for parks, heritage sites, museums, and interpretive organizations across the country, including extensive work with National Park Service sites.
Her training work began following her keynote at the 2007 National Association for Interpretation Conference. She received NAI's Media Award for Best Interpretive Media and has published regularly in Legacy. She is the author of the forthcoming Sense of Place and the Art of Interpretation (Bloomsbury/AASLH).
Sense of Place Deep Dive Experience
Explore a place that matters to you in this two-day online immersive Sense of Place workshop. Discover stories, meaning, and creative insights through a guided framework.
Interpret Europe Online Symposium
https://symposium.interpret-europe.net
The Role of Narratives in 21st Century Heritage Interpretation (Online Symposium— Open to members of Interpret Europe.) Exploring how narratives shape meaning, dialogue and responsibility in heritage interpretation today.
Developed by Interpret Europe in collaboration with UNESCO, the Learning Landscapes initiative supports heritage areas in becoming places where interpretation connects people, strengthens communities, and fosters shared responsibility for the future.
Within this framework, this online symposium invites heritage professionals, practitioners, researchers and educators to reflect on the role of narratives in contemporary interpretation. Moving beyond single stories and fixed messages, the symposium explores narratives as spaces for dialogue, learning and shared meaning-making.
Vision Board in a Box Workshop
Join me at the Rowe, MA Library for a Vision Board in a Box workshop.
Pause, reflect, and imagine what you’d like to carry forward into the year ahead. Create a beautiful box designed to hold your dreams and intentions—and help you stay focused on what you want to create in your life.
This fun, creative experience invites you to reflect on where you are in your life right now and gain clarity about where you’d like to go next. Using a reflective workbook and hands-on materials, you’ll create a Vision Box: a visual map of your inner and outer intentions for your life now.
After reflecting on where we’ve been and where we want to go, we’ll create our boxes using magazine images, prompts, and simple art supplies. The experience is reflective, fun, and soulful.
Includes:
• A guided workbook with prompts
• Supplies for cutting and pasting images
• A box for your vision project
Feel free to bring extra magazines to use and share if you’d like.
Registration:
Please pre-register with the Rowe Library by phone (413) 339-4761, email [email protected], or by stopping by in person.
✨ Limited to 12 participants. Reserve your spot!
Sense of Place and the Art of Interpretation Training (NAI)
Course Registration
Sense of Place and the Art of Interpretation
Tuesdays, September 9-October 14, 2025
11:00 am-2:00 pm Pacific/2:00–5:00 pm Eastern
Plus, 2 additional open office hours (time TBD)
Instructor: Erica Wheeler, Sense of Place Consulting
NAI CE Credits: 18
About the Workshop
A strong sense of place narrative grounds your work in relevance and meaning, and is at the heart of powerful interpretation. This course will help you recharge your skills and rethink your interpretive approach through a dynamic blend of narrative skill-building, creativity, and hands-on practices.
During this six-week, 18-hour course, you’ll engage in creative strategies for designing well-balanced experiences and deepen your ability to connect people to place. Through discussions, implementation activities, and small group work, you'll build a personalized toolkit and leave with a ready-to-use interpretive program that reflects your renewed perspective.
Catamount Hill Association Gathering
35th Quinquennial Reunion
150 years!
Celebrating 150 years of gathering!
A keynote journey of song, story and conversation celebrating Catamount Hill of Yesterday and Today.
The Farmhouse Women’s Wellness and Writing Weekend, Colrain, MA
July 1-4, 2025 | The Farmhouse Women’s Wellness and Writing Weekend, Colrain, MA
All inclusive rates for 3 nights and 4 days.
Sessions on writing, self-care and soul-care Attend the workshops and/or enjoy different activities on your own!
Onsite activities: Hot tub, ping pong, games, campfire, hiking, massage appointments, yoga, trail hiking trails
Offsite activities: Hiking, rail trail biking, kayaking, swimming, nature walks and birding, flea market, shopping, historic sites and museums
Evening activities: Campfire concert, star gazing talk, sharing circle
Where We Live: Sense of Place Concert and Writers Showcase, Turner's Falls, MA
Great Falls Discovery Center, Turners Falls, MA
WHAT: Where We Live: Sense of Place Concert and Writers Showcase with Erica Wheeler
DESCRIPTION: Singer-songwriter Erica Wheeler will perform a concert of place-based songs and also invite participants from her NEA Big Read workshop series (see April 10, 16, and 17 events above) to share their writings with the audience. The event is free and open to all, refreshments provided. Erica helped us kick off our NEA Big Read with an inspiring Orchard Saunter last November.
Gifted with a beautiful voice, Erica Wheeler is an award-winning singer-songwriter and TEDx speaker. She has worked extensively with the National Park Service and other natural, cultural, and historic sites helping them create compelling visitor programs.
When she paints a landscape with song, she strikes a chord that resonates at a deep emotional level. —Baltimore Woods Nature Center, Marcellus, NY
The Permaculture Place, Shelburne Falls, MA
APRIL 17, Thursday 6:30-8 pm (Pre-registration required)
The Permaculture Place, Shelburne Falls, MA
WHAT: Where We Live: A Sense of Place Story and Writing Workshop with Erica Wheeler
DESCRIPTION: This 90-minute workshop invites writers of all levels to craft vivid, sensory-rich stories, poems, or songs inspired by personal experiences with place. Through guided prompts and conversation, you’ll uncover fresh perspectives and creative sparks to enrich your writing and deepen your connection to yourself and where you live.
Co-sponsored by PVMA and Montague Public Libraries’ NEA Big Read and The Permaculture Place. Workshop participants will be invited to share their writings at a culminating concert with Erica Wheeler and writer’s showcase event celebrating local voices and stories on April 27, from 3-5 pm at the Great Falls Discovery Center.
WHERE: The Permaculture Place, 49 Conway Street, Shelburne Falls, MA
https://www.thepermacultureplace.org/events
Where We Live: A Sense of Place Story and Writing Workshop, Northampton, MA
(Pre-registration required)
Coolidge Museum at Forbes Library, Northampton, MA
WHAT: Where We Live: A Sense of Place Story and Writing Workshop with Erica Wheeler
DESCRIPTION: This 90-minute workshop invites writers of all levels to craft vivid, sensory-rich stories, poems, or songs inspired by personal experiences with place. Through guided prompts and conversation, you’ll uncover fresh perspectives and creative sparks to enrich your writing and deepen your connection to yourself and where you live.
Co-sponsored by PVMA and Montague Public Libraries’ NEA Big Read and All Hamptons Read. Workshop participants will be invited to share their writings at a culminating concert with Erica Wheeler and writer’s showcase event celebrating local voices and stories on April 27, from 3-5 pm at the Great Falls Discovery Center.
WHERE: Coolidge Museum, Forbes Library, 20 West St., Northampton MA
More details and registration link here. Registrations open at 6:30pm Wednesday, March 19.
Where We Live: A Sense of Place Story and Writing Workshop , Holyoke, MA
(Pre-registration required)
Wistariahurst Museum, Holyoke, MA
WHAT: Where We Live: A Sense of Place Story and Writing Workshop with Erica Wheeler
DESCRIPTION: This 90-minute workshop invites writers of all levels to craft vivid, sensory-rich stories, poems, or songs inspired by personal experiences with place. Through guided prompts and conversation, you’ll uncover fresh perspectives and creative sparks to enrich your writing and deepen your connection to yourself and where you live.
Co-sponsored by PVMA and Montague Public Libraries’ NEA Big Read and Wistariahurst Museum. Workshop participants will be invited to share their writings at a culminating concert with Erica Wheeler and writer’s showcase event celebrating local voices and stories on April 27, from 3-5 pm at the Great Falls Discovery Center.
WHERE: Wistariahurst Museum, 238 Cabot Street, Holyoke, MA
More details and registration link here.
Blossom: A Creative Writing Breakthrough Retreat (Online)
A Creative Writing Breakthrough Retreat
A full day of writing, reflection, creativity and community. Explore whatever is emerging in your writing and your life. Experience Erica's "power hour" writing breakthrough process. Use the energy of spring to kick-start your writing or your next step in life.
National Association for Interpretation Conference, Concurrent Session
Belonging, Inclusion and the Power of Place
See your site from a fresh perspective. Brainstorm with peers to develop an inclusive, site-specific, place-centered program to engage different learning styles. Gain a proven process to make program outlining easy.
1. Use a sense of place lens to create more inclusive, relevant and engaging programs.
2. Expand your interpretation toolbox with fresh ideas and practical tools.
3. Create a meaningful mini-program outline.
https://nai-us.org/NAIConference
Keynote: New Mexico Council on Aging
Sense of Place, Story and Well-Being Keynote
Be prepared to take an unforgettable journey through song, story and conversation that evokes personal stories grounded in the power of place. Learn why place-based memories stay with us so vividly forever. Gain insight for ways to think about your journey through life and your narratives in a new way. Leave recharged and with a sense of place, well-being and belonging that is deeply needed in our world, no matter where you are.
https://www.aginginnm.org/speakers
Women's Wellness Retreat: Attean Lake Lodge, Jackman, Maine
This wellness retreat is designed to rejuvenate a group of women through yoga and meditation, art and crafts, and nature walks in a serene setting.
I’ll be giving a campfire concert and writing workshop at this beautiful wilderness camp!!!
https://www.atteanlakelodge.com/event-details/womens-wellness-retreat-2?fbclid=IwY2xjawEg4u9leHRuA2FlbQIxMAABHd13Acg-hW16rz90Vdag_px_K2TowywB080UkvWyW3CQB1L1pNq8N9B7Dg_aem_nlFbqARHBNfsmk5VqQq0PA
Interpretation Canada National Conference 2023 (ONLINE)
Some interpretive trainings offer formulaic techniques for participants to implement afterwards. Erica offers a collaborative development segment in her Sense of Place and the Art of Interpretation trainings which helps interpreters apply what they have gained. This session will provide case studies from sites across North America that have used her approach to think outside the box, experiment with techniques, and generate ideas and apply to create new programs or refresh current offerings.
Great Camp Sagamore: Sense of Place Writing Workshop
https://www.sagamore.org/august/sense-of-place-writing
Great Camp Sagamore Songwriting Weekend
https://www.sagamore.org/july-programs/rooted-in-place
Deepening the Power of Place: Exploring our Cultural Crossroads through Story, Song and Spoken Word
A Keynote Concert and Conversation with Erica Wheeler + Poetry and Spoken word with Andre StrongBearHeart Gaines, Jr. and friends.
Open Alumni Tea and Reading
Come and listen to current and past participants of Sense of Place Writing classes. FREE!
Enjoy a cozy and nourishing afternoon of creativity and community.
The Gift of Story: A Winter Solstice Retreat
2 full days of inspiration, tools, creativity, and support.
December 17th to 18th, 10 am to 8 pm ET
Live online with Erica Wheeler
This will be a fun and soulful retreat! We’ll be using Clarissa Estes Pinkola’s “Gift of Story” as inspiration, plus the classic story format of holiday movies. It will also help you get grounded and centered in the essence of the season and what it really means. Find and share stories as a gift for yourself or others.
Includes: Pre-retreat guidebook prompts, and practices you can use long after the retreat is over.
Come enjoy a nourishing community of support and celebrate this time of year!
Gratitude: A November Creative Writing Retreat
1 full day of inspiration, tools, creativity, and support.
Sunday, November 20th, 10 am ET to 8 pm ET
Live online with Erica Wheeler
Change your relationship with your writing through gratitude. Take time to reflect on your connection to the earth, people, places and objects that are meaningful to you. The full-day format helps you dive below the surface and stay with a piece of writing until you get a draft.
Includes: Pre-retreat guidebook prompts, and practices you can use long after the retreat is over.
Give yourself a day of reflection, inspiration, creativity and community.
Fall Writing Series
If you yearn to write more and are looking for inspiration and a community that is grounded in a sense of place to uncover the memories and experiences that bring a story to life, this is for you.
It's for all kinds of writers: non-fiction, historical fiction, memoir, interpretation, songs, poetry, and more.
You'll get a unique, proven framework, along with the practices and tools you need to kickstart your writing and keep honing your craft.
By the end of the year, you'll have completed writings and mapped out your next steps.