Louisville Magazine

DEC 2014

Louisville Magazine is Louisville's city magazine, covering Louisville people, lifestyles, politics, sports, restaurants, entertainment and homes. Includes a monthly calendar of events.

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LOUISVILLE MAGAZINE 12.14 43 eeting one of the founders of New Orleans' Neighbor- hood Story Project inspired Darcy Thompson. The program had put together a series of books featuring New Orleanians telling stories about their neighborhoods. "I was just blown away by how these were really of the community," says Thompson, 38. He wanted to give people in Louisville a way tell their own stories to a wide audience. (And before any funding came in, he knew he wanted to pay the writers. "I think that the work… is important for our community, and that merits some compen- sation," he says.) A grant from Vernon Robertson Urban Char- ities and a contribution from local entrepreneur Gill Holland got the Louisville Story Program of the ground. Having taught high school, Thompson decided to work Louisville Story Program Personal experience on paper NOVEL NONPROFITS NOVEL NONPROFITS These local facilitators have been conducting their own idea festival. with students on the frst book. Keith Look, then the principal at the Academy at Shawnee High School, agreed to let Thompson and early partner Joe Manning, a writer, pitch the idea to stu- dents in April 2013. They ofered $500 to students who wanted to participate in writing/inter- viewing workshops over the summer and fall, then put their stories on paper. In November 2013, a Kickstarter fundraising campaign to help with printing and other production expenses raised $10,379, almost $1,900 more than the original goal. The book, titled Our Shawnee, came out in May and has sold 2,000 copies. (The Louisville Story Program is currently working with another group of contrib- utors, who are telling stories about the Dirt Bowl, a long-run- ning basketball tournament in Shawnee Park.) Callie Comer was one of the eight students who participated M in the Our Shawnee project. Each writer has three stories in the book, accompanied by photos of the authors and the places they're talking about. Comer's frst is a vignette about Lytle Street in Portland, where she lived at the time. In another, she describes life growing up with a mother who, by Comer's description, was fun and loving but had a drug addiction that made life chaotic. Comer quotes her mom in the story: "I'm not no Betty Crocker cookie-cut- ter mom." Comer's mom died from an overdose in October 2012, and Comer says writing about it was therapeutic. "It let me get some memories and emotions out that I felt I needed to," Comer says. "A mother's a pretty important person in your life, whether they were the best mom or not. I just felt lucky that I got a chance to openly express myself in that way." Darcy Thompson and Callie Comer By Amy Talbott Photos by Chris Witzke

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