Welcome to the 2026
Summer of Stories
Enrich Your Summer Through Deeper Connections to
Yourself, Your Stories and Your Surroundings
This summer, I want to invite you into a different relationship with place, experience, meaning, and story.
Not a rush to produce. Not another thing to master. Instead, a season of exploration, discovery, and paying attention.
You can arrive with a question you’ve been wanting to explore. Or you can use that spacious feeling of summer to get into a kind of flow, where you make real progress on a story or project.
Together, we'll explore how a deeper sense of place develops, and how meaningful stories emerge and how ideas and insight can grow from our relationships with the places that matter to us.
Over this summer I’ll be sharing stories, observations, and invitations. You can also follow along via my newsletter and social media or come to the free June webinar and the deeper experiences in July and August.
Whether you’re a writer, educator, interpreter, creative, or simply someone who wants to spend more time with the places and stories that matter, you’re welcome here.
My hope is that by the end of the summer you'll have a new perspective on places, stories, and the meaning your experiences hold.
Ways To Join In
Follow Along
Join the conversation through my newsletter and social posts throughout the summer as I share stories, observations, questions, and reflections about place, meaning, and story.
Get the newsletter →
Join the Free Webinar
A Sense of Place and Story Webinar
Friday, June 26 | Online| 12 noon to 1 pm ET
Explore what a sense of place is, what makes a sense-of-place story different, and why some places continue to shape us long after we've left them.
Learn more and register for the free webinar →
Join the July Experience
A Deeper Sense of Place Experience
July 16–17 | Online
A two-day immersive experience exploring how deeper relationships with place can become sources of stories, meaning, insight, and creative work.
Learn more about July Experience →
Join the August Experience
Finding the Story: A Sense of Place Story Intensive
Dates TBA
Take what emerged through your sense-of-place exploration and begin shaping it into writing, interpretation, teaching, creative work, or a shareable story.
More TBA.
FAQ’s
What is the Summer of Stories About?
Summer of Stories is a series of invitations to explore the connections between place, story, meaning, and creativity through the spaciousness and possibilities that summer offers.
We'll explore how paying closer attention to the places and experiences that matter can lead to deeper understanding, richer stories, new ideas, and meaningful discoveries.
What is a sense of place?
In Erica’s framework, sense of place is not a location or setting. It is not simply a feeling you have about a place.
It is a meaning-making process that happens through the integration of knowledge and experience.
When we reflect on what we know about a place, what we have experienced there, and what we notice or feel in relationship to it, connections begin to form. From those connections, meaning emerges. From the integration of knowledge, experience, and meaning, our individual and ongoing sense of place is formed.
What is a sense of place story?
A sense-of-place story is more than a recounting of what happened.
It starts with your connection to a place and the details, memories, observations, and insights that relationship reveals. It grows through what the place helped you see, understand, remember, or care about.
It’s a story that shares both the experience itself, and what it came to mean.
Do I need to be a writer ?
Not at all. While writers will enjoy and grow from this work, Summer of Stories is for anyone interested in exploring place, memory, meaning, and story.
You don't need a writing project to participate. You only need curiosity and a willingness to pay attention to what place connections can hold.
Will this be a writing program?
Writing is one way of working with what emerges, but it is not the only way.
People often apply this work to writing, interpretation, teaching, creative projects, community storytelling, and personal reflection.
The larger focus is developing relationships with places and learning how to work with the stories, ideas, memories, insights, and meaning that emerge from those relationships.
How do the June, July, and August experiences fit together?
The summer is designed as a progression.
The June webinar introduces a sense of place perspective and explores how place influences story, meaning, and creativity.
The July immersion focuses on developing a deeper relationship with a place that matters to you.
The August story intensive focuses on shaping what emerged into writings, interpretation, teaching, creative work, or a formed story ready to share.
You are welcome to participate in any part of the journey or just follow along through the newsletter invitations.