Upcoming Events

Ask An Oral Historian consultation hours are your chance to dive into the intricacies of oral history and learn alongside fellow storytellers. Whether you’re wrestling with a current project or just curious about the craft, these monthly 60-minute working sessions are your space to grow and ask questions in an intimate, small-group setting.

Thinking about turning your oral history work into a sustainable practice? In this session, we’ll explore the practical realities of running an independent oral history business with a practitioner who has founded and directed her own for-profit and non-profit oral history companies for 20 years. We will get real about what it takes to build and sustain successful, values-based oral history businesses—from pricing your services and defining your offerings to finding clients and managing projects.

We’ll discuss different business models, whether you’re considering full-time employment, consulting, freelance work alongside other employment, or developing training and workshop programs. You’ll also learn strategies for expanding your services through cross-selling—such as offering narrative editing, ghostwriting, or content development alongside your oral history work—and how to package complementary offerings that leverage your storytelling expertise. We’ll cover essential tools, contracts, and administrative systems that support ethical practice while keeping your business running smoothly. Bring your questions about making the leap, sustaining your work, and building a practice that aligns with your values.

Ask An Oral Historian consultation hours are your chance to dive into the intricacies of oral history and learn alongside fellow storytellers. Whether you’re wrestling with a current project or just curious about the craft, these monthly 60-minute working sessions are your space to grow and ask questions in an intimate, small-group setting.

History doesn’t only live in textbooks or university lecture halls. It lives in museums, archives, documentary films, historic neighborhoods, and the stories communities tell about themselves. Public history, sometimes called “applied history,” is the practice of researching, interpreting, and presenting history for and with the people most connected to it.

For the April session of Ask an Oral Historian, we explore the intersection of oral history and public history, and what it looks like to do this work with integrity and courage right now. Whether you work in a museum, a community archive, a historic site, or a digital storytelling project, this conversation is for you. Bring your questions, your projects, and your curiosity.