Interpretive Theme Writer’s Field Guide

Title: Interpretive Theme Writer’s Field Guide: How to Craft Strong Themes from Big Idea to Presentation

Author: Jon Kohl (Costa Rica, 1993-95)

Published: Feb. 19, 2026 (Bloomsbury Academic)

Review by:Eugénie de Rosier (Philippines, 2006-08)

If you’ve never heard of “interpretive theme writing,” you are not alone.

Jon Kohl defines interpretation as its own category of communication, apart from others, used by naturalists, museum curators, environmentalists, documentarians, protected-area managers, interpretive planners and directors. The discipline extends to anyone who enables deeper connections between an audience and an interpreted subject. According to the Kohl, this is the first book dedicated specifically to the genre.

The point of this academic guide is to help interpretive communicators write sturdy themes and big ideas and deliver them through excellent presentations, to heighten heritage management and conservation. The other imperative is to stimulate visitors’ thinking in new ways. Kohl’s thrust is toward understanding others to know ourselves better, and enrich the world.

The author spent decades in North America, South America, Europe, Australia, and Korea “promoting heritage interpretation, as part of an...approach to international natural-cultural heritage protected-area management.” To him, “there is no difference between natural and cultural heritage. There is only one process of evolution that creates heritage.”

Beyond Kohl’s own learnings, the book is filled with experts’ viewpoints, and contains exercises, tables, worksheets, and graphs, tips and photos throughout to help students hone their craft.

His hope for the guide is that it be used often—tucked into a satchel, easily retrieved at sites—to assist an interpretive writer or a team or a community, as each builds and delivers a successful presentation product.

If your practice “is interpretation, a precise theme guides the selection of your content and helps visitors decipher your communication goals,” Kohl writes.

An interpretative writer often works at an historic site, such as Pennsylvania’s Gettysburg battlefields or Albuquerque, New Mexico’s Valle de Oro National Wildlife Refuge, or in a museum, an indigenous sacred land, near an historic river, or in a national park. Kohl appreciates that a writer’s creativity is spurred by water, open sky, plant diversity, unknown animals, centuries-old structures, and prompts interpreters to write in these spaces.

Detail is not spared in this academic book of theme, big idea, and delivery—its through line. There is much to learn from this guide, and it can’t help but give this type of writer new learnings that can be acted upon immediately. For the casual reader who is not personally involved with interpretive themes at heritage sites, the level of detail may make it hard to connect with this book.

Jon sometimes uses stalemilitary and sport metaphors. His writing can be wordy with complex sentence construction and minimal punctuation, which can be at times confusing, and many of the charts and graphs are presented in very small font sizes.

But the writer makes a strong case for being a reliable instructor. Jon has had a broad career background as an interpretive trainer, professor, writer, planner and theorist. He started his career as a Peace Corps interpreter at Costa Rica’s national zoo, and later taught at the University of Costa Rica, where he and his family currently live. He’s a founding director of the PUP Collaboratory (Public Use Planning Program) to innovate and curate heritage-management tools, including interpretation. This guide is his fourth book, and he’s an editorial advisor to UNESCO/WHIPIC (World Heritage Interpretation and Presentation International Center).

For practitioners or aficionados of interpretive writing, this book would likely be a valuable resource.

Originally published on peacecorpsworldwide.org ‍ Feb 18, 2026