Personal Interpretation: Connecting Your Audience with Heritage Resources

by Tim Merriman, Lisa Brochu

If you only had time to read one book before becoming a front-line guide or interpreter, Personal Interpretation: Connecting Your Audience with Heritage Resources is the ideal resource. Written in clear, concise language with many examples, it employs the most current ideas in the interpretive profession. It also shares some of the rich traditions from interpretation's past masters, drawing on Freeman Tilden's principles and Enos Mills' thoughtful ideas on nature guiding. It will connect you with the more in-depth resources developed by authors such as Sam Ham, Bill Lewis, Douglas Knudson, Ted Cable, Larry beck, and Joseph Cornell. This resource shares the approaches tested and proven by the National Park Service and many other organizations along with the research concepts that back up their approaches.

102 pages, Kindle Edition

First published October 26, 2012

About the author

Writing has always been a strong interest for me but time and the maturity to write well has come later in life. Lisa Brochu and I work together, write as a team and were married in 2008. Since 2002, we have written four non-fiction books in the area of heritage interpretation and one work of fiction, The Leopard Tree.

In the 1970's I published several children's plays in Scott Foresman readers. I wrote my first novel then and queried diverse publishers, building my file of rejection letters. Somewhere around 24 or so I quit sending the queries. I really plunged deeper into my work then. I was an environmental educator at Southern Illinois University's Touch of Nature. Then I was a park ranger/interpreter at Giant City State Park in Makanda, Illinois. Next I was Director of a nature center in Pueblo, Colorado for a dozen years and then Science Director for Bat Conservation International and later served as Research Manager for Land Between the Lakes in Kentucky.I served as the Executive Director of National of Association for Interpretation in Fort Collins, Colorado, from 1995 to 2012.

Lisa and I now consult as Heartfelt Associates with parks, zoos, nature centers, aquariums, historic sites and communities on heritage interpretation. We have traveled 23 countries since 1995 in this work.

We personally donate to several E. African charities assisting communities with HIV, malaria and hunger. We also advocate for organizations protecting wildlife, especially elephants and mountain gorillas.

Having grown up in Vandalia, Illinois, I went to college nearby in Carbondale, Illinois, at Southern Illinois University earning a B.S. in zoology, teaching certificate, M.A. in botany and Ph.D. in speech/communitcations.

Reviews

[Harve Lemelin · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good book on interpretation, providing different perspectives on the art form.

[Stacy Nalley · Rating 5 out of 5]

A must read for tour guides or any interpretive professional.

[Libri Sempra · Rating 5 out of 5]

Valuable information, used this when I was getting certified as an Interpretive guide when I was a park ranger