Excavating the secrets, scandals, and untold stories hiding below the surface of life, and giving voice to the characters who make or made those hiStories happen.
You can tell a lot about someone by whom they admire, by whom they call out as their #HistoryHero.
Since April, my team and I have been asking folks to shout out the name of their favorite #HistoryHero since April. It’s been fun and a very positive experience. So much so that we’re now turning their stories into a blog series. We've met fascinating figures we never knew before and learning as much about our heroes as about the people recommending them:
There comes a time in the life cycle of any creative endeavor, whether it be a book, film, or interactive tourism app/digital book, when it must be allowed to venture forth and take on an existence beyond its creator.
Ironically, this often coincides with the point when the creator can’t bear to live with it anymore.
She has birthed, nurtured, examined, revised, tested, corrected, and tweaked the project until she can no longer see it clearly. Still, she carries on polishing and buffing the stone, fretting over the flaws in the marble. She questions this color choice, that turn of phrase, and every navigational decision in between.
But there are deadlines to meet and promises to keep, so ready or not, out it goes. With a deep breath, a kiss, and a silent prayer, she pushes “send” on the submission. Then, she suddenly, desperately wishes she hadn't.
I woke up this morning, as I have every morning this week, to the pealing of bells from the campanile of Florence’s iconic cathedral complex, Santa Maria del Fiore, popularly known as the Duomo. The heart of this ancient and exquisite city, the Duomo also plays a central role in our new story tour, Buried Alive: The Secret Michelangelo Took to His Grave. I’m here to test the app one last time before we shout its existence out to the world. I'm happy to say that it's working great!
It was nothing short of incredible. I felt like Harry Potter in the opening scenes of the first movie when Hagrid shows up with a mushed birthday cake and says, “You’re a wizard, Harry.”
"Me?" the stunned boy responds. "I'm... I'm just…. Harry.”
Well, there I was... just Sarah... on stage before a room of 400 people, including HRH The Duke of York, telling them how, by harnessing technology and good old-fashioned narrative, I intend to #TurnHistoryOn to reverse the threat to cultural literacy and #MakeHistoryMatter.
