Maybe Atlanta isn't so bad after all

Don't let the title of this post fool you. I still hate Atlanta.

Seconds after posting why I hate Atlanta, I realized I had forgotten my toothbrush. And it was embarrassingly late so I didn't dare call the front desk. Plus, that would have meant I had to get dressed, or at minimum put a bra on, to go get one.

But I will give my violence and injury prevention colleagues credit. They put together a good conference.

And one of my professional dreams come true! I got to meet Andy Goodman!!!! He is my inspiration for all the storytelling projects I've tried. Like my poor underutilized Utah Health Story Bank which I feel is one of my "failures" from about five years ago, yet nationally is still recognized as innovative. Or our touching Teen Memoriams. It sounds corny, but after reading his book, "Storytelling as Best Practice" probably six years ago, I made it a secret wish to meet the man. Then last month, I happened to read one of those "chain mail" emails about some webinar and low and behold, he was the presenter. And the webinar was FREE! I immediately cleared my schedule to watch and was blown away, even being thousands of miles away and watching it via computer.

I knew the conference was having a special workshop on storytelling but I didn't realize Andy Goodman, my hero of storytelling, was the honored guest! I nearly fell out of my chair with giggles of delight when I found out. My poor colleagues had me whispering in their ears all morning about how excited I was and that Atlanta wasn't so bad anymore. He did not disappoint!

Andy Goodman

 

Before the session started, I rushed over to him like a giddy school girl. After telling him I was from Utah, he said something like, "Oh Utah has a story bank." OH MY!!! That was me! Then he got a big grin on his face and almost seemed impressed to meet the visionary behind that project. After six hours of learning why public health needs to tell our stories and practicing how to do so, I feel like I'm floating in the stars! I felt so recharged and so excited to go back home and push the idea of storytelling to my colleagues that I didn't want it the day to end. And now that I've met him in person and head him speak in person (amazing speaker!), I can really advocate to our public health associations that he HAS to come to Utah! Eek! Can you tell how excited I was/still am with all the exclamation points!!!!

Oh, and go Utah! We won the Innovative Initiative Award for integration of accidental drug overdoses deaths into the Utah Violent Death Reporting System. I knew we were one of four finalists for the award, but when they read our name, I was pretty surprised. It was kind of awkward accepting it, when all I did was tear apart Anna's original submission. She's the one who really deserves the award. But we smiled and thanked everyone back home who worked on the project. We were like celebrities for the rest of the conference... with everyone congratulating us and all but asking for our autographs.

Lori Haskett (Safe States Alliance President), me, Whitney, and Catherine