Community.

That’s a word with which I never associated as I grew up, left the Midwest, and headed into the world with delusions of writing grandeur. Life was short, and there was little time to consider what was happening around me if I wanted to succeed.

These days, I move a little slower and I try to pay a bit more attention. That is the struggle. The reward is that when I am able to slow myself and look around, I come across projects like this:

Testify: A Visual Love Letter to Appalachia

Certainly one part of me — the frightened side — wants to hide amazing projects like this. I’m trying to fund my own project, and this (it would seem) is competing for the same audience.

But that is the fear talking, the little nagging voice that tells all of us that for us to succeed everyone else around us my fail.

In the end, I’m a storyteller, and the point of that — if there is a point — is this: We don’t hide stories that may swallow ours. We sit in the sunshine with them and watch how everything grows.

The point of Kickstarter (and IndieGoGo and PubSlush and others) is to share in the experience of creating.

And that is the point of my life, I think. That is the point of community.

And so I hope you do share in that.

Watch the video, read about his project, and get lost in the images.

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If you like what you’ve read, and would like to support my project, So Far Appalachia, please visit my Kickstarter page (and pass this along to any friends who you think might find this interesting).