On Thursday, I finally toured the Ale-8 factory in Winchester. Even though I live only half an hour away, it was my first time visiting — just like it was for many people from much farther away, brought to Winchester for Mountain Workshops.
Kentucky’s official state soft drink was certainly the star of the photojournalism workshop this week, where I was a writing coach. If you’re counting: Yes, this was my second photojournalism workshop in a row. Yes, I am tired.
In last week’s newsletter, I said I had much to write about after Picture Kentucky, with the intention of being ready to write about it for today’s newsletter. That is not the case; let’s hope I’ll be ready for the newsletter that opens November. I’ll have an extra hour of sleep, after all.
It was great fun to share some of Kentucky with my group at Mountain, which attracts students and professionals from across the country and even the world. I love my home so dearly, and I think many of the workshop participants now love Kentucky, too.
I encourage you to check out the work produced at both photojournalism workshops. At each one, I helped photographers with interviewing and writing for the written part of their stories. It was such a privilege to use and develop my writing and teaching skills in these settings.
Picture Kentucky is posting each photo story, with at least part of the written story as the caption, on Instagram. I helped all 20 participants with their stories; it was especially fun to work with that group because I’ve had almost half of them in class.
Mountain Workshops’ website is live now with the published work from this week. My group was Brennan Campbell, Chris Hughes, Logan Graham, Kyle Ingermann, Ben Pennington, Carrie Pitzer and Charlotte Geiger Tuminelli. Our group’s writing coach was Andrew Nelles, and our photo editing participant was Christine Kao.
I raise a glass of Ale-8 to each person I’ve gotten to tell stories with over the last few weeks. How lucky am I!