StoryCorps Atlanta Goes to Camp

At 7:30a.m. on a crisp, fall Atlanta morning, the Atlanta StoryCorps team left the StoryBooth and traveled some 40 miles north on I-75 to Woodstock (no, not New York) Georgia. Although the trip was somewhat shorter than anticipated, 40 miles in any direction from Atlanta plops one squarely in the sticks! In this case, we were in the north Georgia mountains. The air was drier, much cooler (actually, cold) and the sunlight seemed brighter. As we left the main road and followed the smaller one that would take us to the dining hall of the Cherokee Outdoor Family YMCA, it was clear that this was not going to be a typical recording day.

Our participants today were in the Atlanta area attending the Speak OUT Camp sponsored by COLAGE. COLAGE is “the only national, youth-driven network of people with lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or queer parents.” Today’s recording booth was a converted sleeping cabin–rustic, worn, dimly lit and cold. My very first participants, Miranda, 22, and Cara, 19, had only met the night before at the airport. They talked about their gay dads. Both women have fathers whom had been married to women but later admitted to themselves that they were gay or bisexual; thus decided to end their traditional marriages.

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