I’m making a list, checking it twice, packing my books and hard-won advice, as I prepare for the 20th anniversary Association of Personal Historians (APH) conference. On October 21 the conference convenes in Sacramento, California, and personal historians from around the world will attend. Some highlights include keynote speakers Andy Anderson, Vice President and Chief Historian of Wells Fargo Bank; award-winning filmmaker Satsuko Ina, Ph.D.; author, comedienne, and scriptwriter Chris Enss; and history professor James Walsh, Ph.D.

The 2015 conference will be the twelfth one I’ve attended, and it will feature outstanding workshops, a farm-to-fork anniversary celebration dinner, and its signature ending, Tales from the Heart, where we share touching stories from the past year. I plan to read “My Two Families: Nurture or Nature,” a guest blog post I wrote for LifeStories2Day.