Loggers wait for recovery to reach them; example of narrative storytelling, topic of Oct. 2 seminar

Economic experts say the recession is bottoming out and recovery is in sight, but that is cold comfort to folks who are out of work or short of work. In the latter category is independent logger Clarence "Sunnyman" Primm, right, who "is struggling to keep from laying off his crew as the economic downturn continues to ripple through his industry and Alabama community," The Washington Post reports. The story by Wil Haygood and the photographs by Linda Davidson make a package, "Waiting for Work in the Silent Woods," that is a great example of narrative storytelling with words and pictures.

That is the kind of storytelling that will be taught at a workshop, "Storytelling with Narratives in Print and Pictures," Oct. 2 at the University of Kentucky. The storytellers will be Stephen G. Bloom, author and journalism professor at the University of Iowa and writer for The Oxford Project, a 2008 book of photographs and narratives of the people of Oxford, Iowa; photographer David Stephenson, who recently left the Lexington Herald-Leader after helping the newspaper break new ground in storytelling with audio, video and still photography; and Amy Wilson, feature writer and roving rural reporter for the Herald-Leader and former reporter for the Orange County Register in California. The workshop is sponsored by the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues, publisher of The Rural Blog. For more information go to the Institute's home page; for a PDF with more details and a registration form, click here.