The drive east in Kentucky grabs your attention differently than mountains. From back highways, farmsteads sit nestled in valleys surrounded by hills covered in fall colors. I passed through counties I'd only heard mentioned, watching the last bit of sunset light up the tallest branches.
This week I'm in Berea, Ky. with Mountain Workshops, a weeklong course that takes photojournalism students to a new city or county each year, gives them a story, and publishes a photo essay of their work. I'm here as a writing coach and I will work with a group of photographers as they put together a story package that includes a short written story. Because I'm blogging from here this week, I thought I would take some time to write about courageous work.
Before I hiked any trails or climbed any mountains, I moved to Minneapolis to study journalism. I chose it because writing was my only identifiable skill and after taking a creative writing class in high school, I knew that wasn't the route for me. When I joined the Minnesota Daily staff my second semester at school, I was the youngest in the newsroom. I was asked to repeat my age every time we got together outside the office and I ordered a coke.
I'm usually a shy person. I can write, but approaching a source and asking for access to his or her story is ... terrifying. I learned after a few weeks that first semester at the Daily that it's the kind of fear that wakes me up. I learned from people who seemed fearless. I nudged into conversations about stories and sources and ethics and craft and it lit up this opposite-self that wants to do more than sit back and observe the commotion.
When mountains came along, I recognized that feeling - the anxiety that do it even though it could be terrible. I can't imagine making the safe choice. I can't imagine what that kind of walking death feels like.
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