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Featured Speakers
Bridget Kling
Keynote Address: Community and Connection
Bridget Kling, a native of New Orleans, received her masters and bachelor’s degrees from the University of New Orleans. An award-winning producer, writer, director, and on-air host, she has received national and regional recognition for her documentary films.
“My speech will include personal stories of growing up in New Orleans, which contributed greatly to my passion for art and history. In light of Hurricane Katrina (which affected my family and me personally), now more than ever before, there is a growing awareness and an interest in ‘saving memories.’ Preserving not only those irreplaceable photographs but also those important familial stories that can only be told by someone who was there…”
Kling has covered a wide-range of topics and genres including music, art, history, culture, public affairs and more. But again and again, she returns to covering her favorite topic—historic preservation. “In my experience, ‘historic preservation’ is not only about preserving the buildings that are vitally important in our communities but preserving the stories within that community as well,” she says. “I am continually driven by a need to understand and communicate, ‘What connects us?’ My speech will look at this very idea—connections to the past, our communities, each other, and why it is important for us to explore and discover those shared connections. Preserving our oral histories, our memories and our shared experiences in order to understand the past, which greatly informs and shapes our present and our future.”
In 2006, Kling relocated to San Diego, California, and has been taken by the entrepreneurial spirit of the West. She serves as an arts consultant and is developing a variety of independent productions and creative projects. An avid traveler and amateur photographer, she loves a good story. Her full-length documentaries include The Ryman: Mother Church of Country Music, Memories of Nashville, Memories of Downtown Nashville and Beautiful Tennessee. Her first documentary, Designed for Worship, was recently adapted into a book.
For more details, please visit these websites:
http://www.wnpt.net/ryman/
http://www.wnpt.net/tn/
http://www.wnpt.net/memories/
http://www.wnpt.net/worship/
Robert Hicks
Keynote Address: The Role of Personal History in Historical Fiction
Robert Hicks, author of the New York Times bestseller The Widow of the South, was born and raised in South Florida. In 1974, he moved to Williamson County, Tennessee; then moving in 1979 to Labor in Vain—a late eighteenth-century log cabin near Leiper’s Fork, Tennessee. Working as a music publisher and in artist management in country and rock music, Hicks’ interests remain broad and varied. A partner in the B. B. King’s Blues Clubs in Nashville, Memphis, and Los Angeles, he serves as Curator of Vibe of the corporation. He also is the executive director of Amylase Entertainment, a film production, artist management, and music publishing company in Nashville.
The Widow of the South was born out of Hicks’s many years of work at Carnton Plantation in Franklin and his passion for the preservation of the remaining fragments of the battlefield there. In writing his first novel, his hope was to bring national attention to this moment in our nation’s history, to emphasize the impact those five bloody hours played in making us a nation, and to preserve the sites tied to the story.
In the field of historic preservation, Hicks has served on the boards of the Historic Carnton, the Tennessee State Museum, the Williamson County Historical Society, and the Museum of Early Southern Decorative Arts. He founded and now serves as co-chair of Franklin’s Charge: A Vision and Campaign for the Preservation of Historic Open Space in the fight to secure and preserve battlefield and other historic open space in Williamson County.
Hicks will speak about the role of personal history in historical fiction and will cover topics such as research techniques, how he got his publishing deal, fleshing out characters from sparse information, and the importance of “storytelling” in preserving history.
For more details, please visit these websites:
http://www.widowofthesouth.com/
http://www.carnton.org/
http://www.franklinscharge.com/
http://www.historicfranklin.com/
http://www.bbkingbluesclub.com/
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/writers/writer.asp?cid=1184830
John Seigenthaler Sr.
Keynote Address: I Am A Legend In My Own Mind
A former president of the American Society of Newspaper Editors, Seigenthaler served for forty-three years as an award-winning journalist for The Tennessean, Nashville’s morning newspaper. In 1982, he became founding editorial director of USA TODAY and served in that position for a decade, retiring from the Nashville and national papers in 1991.
Seigenthaler left journalism briefly in the early 1960s to serve in the U.S. Justice Department as administrative assistant to Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy. His work in the field of civil rights led to his service as chief negotiator with the governor of Alabama during the Freedom Rides. During that crisis, while attempting to aid Freedom Riders in Montgomery, he was attacked by a mob of Klansmen.
Seigenthaler hosts a weekly book-review program, A Word on Words on Nashville’s local PBS station. He chairs the annual Profile in Courage Award selection committee and the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation and co-chairs with Arthur Schlesinger Jr. the Robert F. Kennedy Book Award for the RFK Memorial. He also is the author of a biography James K. Polk published by Times Books in January 2004.
Having a very rich personal history of his own, Mr. Seigenthaler understands firsthand how important documenting history can be, as he endured quite a battle to overcome slanderous accusations via Wikipedia and the Internet. APH is honored to have him speak at our conference and looks forward to his discussion of the personal side of history.
For more details, please visit these websites:
http://www.freedomforum.org/
http://www.firstamendmentcenter.org/
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