Networks improve when they echo each other -- more copies keep things safe and when you help others, it helps you.  So WMA is pleased to keep posting on the upcoming AAM Annual Meeting in Los Angeles.  Allyson Lazar put up the Mountain Plains survey; because WMA's recent survey was so important for us.  And we will post more on the upcoming California Association of Museums Meeting.  Here's more from AAM's Dewey Blanton on one of this year's keynote speakers:

Amy Tan Sees Museums as Keepers of Our Heritages

The AAM Annual Meeting and MuseumExpo™ is yearly treated to the wisdom of extraordinary keynote speakers. This year is no exception, as celebrated authors Julia Alvarez and Amy Tan will serve in that capacity in Los Angeles.

Tan is one of the most acclaimed novelists of the last decade, whose works include The Joy Luck Club, The Bonesetter’s Daughter and Saving Fish From Drowning. Tan has also written successful children’s books, as well as an honored memoir, The Opposite of Fate. Born in the U.S. to immigrant parents, Tan’s work often delves into her Chinese culture and its embrace of ancestry and memory.

In a recent conversation with Museum magazine, Tan explained how museums can be integral to her inspiration.

“Whenever I go to a museum, it’s as though I am there with the people who lived at that time,” Tan said. “It’s almost as though I entered a time machine, especially when I see very intimate, very intricate little details of their lives. I often take those details and put them in my books. It may not be specifically the same detail I saw at the museum, but it triggers in me an element of memory, which . . . is what my fiction is often about.”

Amy Tan will share similar insights when she addresses the general session on Wednesday, May 26 at 10:30 a.m.