About HistoryKeep

Francie King, HistoryKeep principal, is a longtime interviewer, writer, and editor whose articles and personal profiles have appeared in magazines and journals throughout New England. Her background includes leadership roles in communications strategic planning and management, public affairs, fundraising and stewardship, marketing, and educational outreach for healthcare, education, the fine arts, and business organizations in the Boston area. She has worked as a journalist and writer for more than 30 years.

Her interests in profiling and social/cultural history led her into personal history writing, where she teaches clients about the value of preserving their own and their families’ histories for posterity. Over the years, she has conducted and taped hundreds of personal interviews, as a news and feature journalist and as a development communications professional with Boston-area nonprofits (the Museum of Fine Arts, and Boston University are among several). She considers the personal interview a privilege not blithely accepted, a shared experience that requires respect, keen observation, good listening, a sense of humor, and a reverence for both story and storyteller.

Francie is a member of the Personal Historians Northeast Network (PHNN), the Editorial Freelancers Association, ACES: The Society for Editing, and the Marblehead Business Referral Network. She is attuned to the stories of those who fervently wish they had recorded a parent’s voice, written down a beloved story or bit of wisdom, or kept a record of a significant family gathering — sounds and events now fading and soon to be lost to succeeding generations