The journey of my folklore self-education is sure turning out to be a long one. I last wrote about this in July! Since then, not much has happened except I made it to a Moth performance and I took a class at the Lighthouse Writers Workshop. I did re-register at Metro to see folklore classes offered in the Spring of 2020 because I did not take one this fall.

AND THEN! The most exciting thing of all! In early August I saw a post on Facebook from the American Folklore Society in which they were congratulating Virginia Siegel for becoming the Arkansas State Folklorist. I was super intrigued by this because I did not know State Folklorist was a thing. I looked up the Colorado State Folklorist to find there isn’t one. Colorado doesn’t even have a folklore society. So, I did what any sort of stalkery person would do. I found Virginia’s email address and sent her an email asking for her advice on how to become the Colorado State Folklorist.

A few months go by and I did not hear back. Which, lets be honest, I was not expecting a reply. Except! At the end of October she wrote me back! Last week we had a wonderful conversation and she put me in touch with the Wyoming State Folklorist who happens to be from Colorado. I was really losing all steam for this project, really feeling lost and not knowing where to even begin and now I’m feeling completely re-energized and inspired. I’m not sure what will come of this, and if anything, maybe I am going to have to move (to Kentucky) for grad school after all.

In the meantime, I’ve started researching cowboy poetry which I didn’t know was a thing until last week. There is a gathering! They gather! It’s coming up in January and I will definitely be there. Anyone want to join me? I also bought the domain name coloradofolkloresociety.com because it was available! I have no idea what to do with it or how to make a website but at this time, I hope to use it as a resource to start gathering info on Colorado’s folklore and rich cultural history.

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