Inside JMS

Kevin Stoker 0:00

Welcome to Inside JMS - stories from the faculty and staff of the Hank Greenspun School of Journalism and Media Studies at UNLV. Today my colleague and cohort Dave Nourse

Dave Nourse 0:04

Glad to be here as always my friend

Kevin Stoker 0:06

And I we have with us, Todd Witcher. Or as we know him - T.R. Witcher.

T.R. Witcher 0:13

T.R. Yes.

Kevin Stoker 0:14

And T.R., we are just happy to have you with us.

T.R. Witcher 0:18

Well, I'm very happy to be here.

Kevin Stoker 0:20

Well, well let's start out we always try to start out with a question is from left field.

T.R. Witcher 0:24

Okay, okay, okay, I'm ready. Okay, what do you got?

Kevin Stoker 0:27

Why is a guy who is a journalist who's teaches writing and everything else? What is he got to do with architecture? I just, I'm trying to figure that out, is it that you're trying to structure your life or your stories in such a way that people will buy them or what's going on with this architecture thing?

T.R. Witcher 0:46

Here's the thing. I grew up outside of Chicago. And when I was a kid, my dad worked for Sears. So I worked in the Sears Tower, then the tallest building in the world. And we used to take the train into the city. And there was something about this isn't anything I was consciously thinking of it when I was a kid. But looking back, you take the train into the city, you can just see the whole development of American cities, suburbs, older suburbs, city neighborhoods, and then you come into this big swaggering Skyline Chicago and you come into the train station, I think, maybe that's where it got started. And I was always interested in place and buildings, and you know, the built environment. And when I got out of college, I took my first real journalism job in Denver. And we were in a neighborhood called lower downtown, which is an old warehouse district that's been renovated. There's a train station there that's been renovated in recent years. And I just found myself wandering around the city, camera in hand, you know, looking at travel books, looking at architecture books. There's a great writer named Jan Morris, who writes about place in a really evocative way. And I think all of those things just gradually, kind of got me interested in writing about thinking about architecture, design cities, etc.

Kevin Stoker 2:21

That's really interesting. Now you, you went to Missouri for your undergrad? I did. I did. And you got an undergrad in journalism.

T.R. Witcher 2:29

I did and and a undergraduate degree in English, too. But yeah, yeah. Got

Kevin Stoker 2:33

undergrads rode from the J stories. Yeah. And then you went to Chicago? No, I

T.R. Witcher 2:39

went to I grew up in Chicago, I grew up outside of Chicago. Gotta be careful with Chicago folks can't You know, I went to out of school, I went to Houston for a summer in the old press as an intern. And then I went to Denver for six years. And then I went to Kansas City. So this was back in the day when the alt press, you know, your alternative weekly newspaper, so we still, we still have a pretty decent weekly here in Las Vegas. But this was in an era, pre social media where these, this the alt press really felt like a viable, strong sort of challenger to kind of mainstream, you know, your, your metropolitan daily newspaper, in the esprit de corps was really, it was a wonderful time. You know, there was a small staff, but there was a staff. You know, there was a staff of six or seven or eight writers, and you just got turned loose on all sorts of stories every week, and you knew that before everyone was on their phones, like people were looking for a copy of your publication, you know, every Thursday, free, you know, as weeklies are and so all driven by classified ads, this is before Craigslist. Right. And, and just, you know, display advertising. I mean, this was, this was a great, it was a great little window that I think we all thought that this was last forever. Little did we know that that wasn't the case. So

Kevin Stoker 4:12

you know, what, what years were This? This? You know, it's kind of interesting. You're talking about the heyday of the oil press?

T.R. Witcher 4:19

Yeah, I was, I was there in this was 95 to the early 2000s. So I mean, this was I was in college. I started college before email kind of kicked in. And so when I got on my first job, and we had computers the internet was very rudimentary even there was there was a thing called email, but it was but nothing like what we've got, you know, no broadband, no wireless, right. So still looking for sources in the phone book. I mean, it was still it was kind of like the end of that kind of, or that era of relative tively low tech,

Dave Nourse 5:02

was there something that drew you to the alt press? And I asked that because there is a big difference between I mean, we're speaking to people ideally who understand journalism. But there's a huge difference between working at a daily and working at a weekly and especially on alternative weekly. What What drew you to that?

T.R. Witcher 5:19

Oh, that was that's, that's easy, like, the alt press. That was where that was where the people who wanted to be writers went, you know, that was the I say this with a bit of tongue in cheek, but but not much. That was where folks who had ambitions to write something big and grand, and you know, with voice and style and all that stuff. You went there in the The Metropolitan dailies, like if you wanted to be like a hardcore like kneecapping, sorry, reporter. And you just thrived in that sort of deadline scoop kind of environment you went to? I mean, as a print journalist, you went to the dailies, right? If you wanted to sort of, if you saw yourself as a little bit more like now, I do long form really in depth kind of whether that's somewhat investigative or feature oriented, you sort of drifted towards the the old press. I mean, this was a moment where I felt like that was, it was a viable, you know, it didn't feel like it didn't feel like leftovers. You know, the old press felt like a legitimate kind of calling that you could get into. And certainly, I mean, you could still make the leap, if you wanted to, at some point later in your career, you could get your feet wet in the press. And if you wanted to move on to, you know, quote, unquote, more mainstream journalism, you easily could. So that was that was the thrill. Like, you know, it was a little bit, you know, we were a little edgier, you could use bad language in your stories, you can have a little bit more, you know, you could have a little bit more fun than you could it was a little bit more freewheeling.

Dave Nourse 7:09

Now it was alternative, it was, it was alternate. And there was this ethos in a way to that the alternative press, and very

T.R. Witcher 7:15

much so very much. I mean, I think proudly that we would, we'd have meetings every week have story meetings every week. And and my boss, who's kind of a, an institution in Denver, Patti Calhoun, who ran westward was paper I worked for. Like, there were two rules, you came into story meetings with your story ideas, there were two rules, actually three rules, color conflict, and something that dailies wouldn't do. And so that was always an exciting, you know, and we were all, you know, you certainly you'd go have a beer or whatever with with your, with your opposite numbers, you know, at the post of the Rocky Mountain News on Fridays, but that was a fun kind of, there was an esprit de corps there. And there was a feeling that like, No, this is, you know, this is a viable, legitimate kind of journalistic enterprise. And it's a lot of fun. And the staff was very talented and, and the size, I like the size to that there weren't a lot of layers of hierarchy. It was just you your story, your editor, a copy editor. And that was kind of it. There weren't a lot of, you know, I mean, you had to the stories have to be good. And sitting down to have a long story edited. Minute, Lee was like that feeling in school where, you know, I mean, it was, it could get nerve racking, it could get pretty nerve racking, you know, you thought I got the story. So this story is great. And, you know, your editor would sit down and get the pan out, start going through it. And maybe it's not as great as I thought, oh, my gosh, I'm just barely hanging on. And can I can we take a break and I get a breath of fresh air get together stuffy in here. But that was just great training. Actually, that's been the best training really, for the work I do. Here for a lot of the work I do here and just evaluating, writing. You learn by sort of really seeing editors kind of work through your stories at a really granular level, and you just start to see stuff and pick up stuff and realize, oh, okay, that's cool, you know, and they were great. You know, the best editors were always they saw things in your work that you didn't they made connections in your work or helped you make connections that you that your draft was almost there, but wasn't quite there. You know, it was like it was almost like your draft was kind of like two hands that were just about to shake with each other. And they would make just the tiniest Move, take a word out, add a word in. So subtle sometimes that you thought, oh, I wrote that, you know, but really, it was them just kind of like subtly kind of, you know, seeing what your story really wanted to be, or needed to be, and just making subtle little changes to kind of bring it across the finish line, while still making you feel like oh, still my story. So that was just an invaluable lesson to kind of see editors do that. And, and as an editor, later on, and teacher, you know, you still kind of think about that, you know, how to help folks sort of, here's what the story really wants to be, and you can suggest changes without being heavy handed about it or without being, you know, I have to put my, you know, imprint on on this story. Really, it's just like, the less you're doing, in a way, you

Kevin Stoker 10:55

know, that that really distinguishes between the editors I hated and the editors I loved. Yeah, because the the editors who could still maintain who could still make the story so much better, while still maintaining your voice and everything else that was important in the story.

T.R. Witcher 11:11

Yeah, those editors are great. I mean, those editors were You were the ones who really, you know, you What's the expression you'd ride or die with? So to speak.

Kevin Stoker 11:20

Right? Right. Well, and you always want you want to write better form.

T.R. Witcher 11:23

Yeah. Yeah. And the ones who just kind of made changes, because you felt like they had two meetings, I'm here, somebody's paying me, I gotta, I gotta do something justify

Dave Nourse 11:35

my existence. Right? Yeah.

T.R. Witcher 11:37

And I, and I appreciate that. I mean, you, you know, as later becoming an editor, you appreciate that, that, that dilemma, if that's the word, or as a teacher, some, you feel like, you don't want to give the paper back to the student that that's basically on point. Sometimes, because you feel like, wow, they're paying me to, to do something to do something, I can't just say, Oh, this looks really good. A plus Great job, you feel like I gotta find, you know. And so the challenge is to sort of resist that, that temptation, you know, to make changes when they need to be made or make suggestions when they need to be, you know, when appropriate, but when things are kind of looking good. Just let it you know, let it roll.

Kevin Stoker 12:25

I remember not wanting to be an editor, I wanted to just always be a writer. Really, I just valued that moment. But no, now later, my career editing has been kind of what I've had to do. Right. Tell me about though there came a time when you I mean, if we're implying that the alt press had its heyday, then it also had its this paid, its it came, do you know the pay day came due? Or whatever it was, they came to that moment? For you? What was the end of that? What was that moment when you all of a sudden said, okay, my future's not here?

T.R. Witcher 13:02

Well, I was in Kansas City, and I was coming up on 30. And I think, I think a lot of journalists will have a moment where there's some there's some next thing, there's some bigger thing better thing, maybe you have a clearer idea of what it is maybe don't have a clear idea what it is. You write the same stories long enough, and you just feel like, Hey, I've done I've learned everything I can learn in this place or this environment. I've written every kind of story that there is to write here. And you just start thinking about now maybe there's something else out there. And maybe there's something new. So I left. This is a company I had worked for since you know, two weeks out of college and been with him for eight years. And it was great. But I thought now I got to see what else is out there. So put my stuff into storage. Left, the weekly paper in Kansas City moved to New York. Because that's, you know, that's what once you did what writers does, which that's what writers do at some point, and then proceeded to mostly starve the next year and a half or so. But that was a great experience. And when I was there, there came a turning point for me where there was a job that I was looking into or you know, interviewing for, and but I was thinking about graduate school. And I was thinking about maybe going on to get a PhD in something I didn't really know what never really found that out. Spoiler alert. And I had to make a choice. As I was leaving New York and I my parents said it Retired out here semi retired out to Las Vegas. And I thought, well, I'll come out here and just hang out. And I had this big decision to make ultimately, there was a big job opportunity or there was a great graduate school opportunity. And I ultimately decided to take the grad school opportunity. This was at the University of Chicago. Yeah, this is the UFC, which had always been sort of, if I was going to go to one school that that felt like, that would be a lot of fun. And and it was it was a great, great stimulating experience. And

Kevin Stoker 15:35

what was what was your focus there, what was your major

T.R. Witcher 15:38

my program was in, it was called a Master of Arts and Humanities. And so it was kind of set up to allow students to do one of two things, either A, take a bunch of classes at the university, I almost call it an awake, sort of like a fifth year of being an undergrad, kind of, or B. And so you had a lot of you had a lot of folks like me, writers, creative types, folks who would go on to go into arts, nonprofit, arts, administrative kind of positions, or you had folks who wanted to get into really highly competitive PhD programs, and they felt they needed that extra. So for them, it was little more like legitimately like a pre PhD year, you could kind of you could kind of make it go either way. And I was there and I was studying cities, right. And I was interested in is all my all my classes were in different disciplines had something to do with cities, the built environment. And I could never quite get myself down to where they felt like I needed was a really specific kind of narrow, focus, like, Okay, I could be a scholar in AIX, my mind was still welcome interested in this kind of interested in this kind of interested in this, etc, etc. You know, if I had to do it over again, I might have might have tried a little harder to find something. But I don't know, maybe maybe I wouldn't have. Because I don't really regret that I haven't, didn't go on in graduate studies. I had a really good experience and learned a lot. I met a lot of really cool people and came out to Las Vegas. So the other answer to your question, I think is like the, the weekly, you know, business model still was kind of hanging on, he still is hanging on here in Las Vegas is a little bit special because of the strip. And so you get all of those nightclub ads and you get sort of there's an advertising base here that I think you don't get in other cities. And so for years here went back to join the staff of the Las Vegas weekly group was that Greenspun they had a magazine I was an editor and associate editor with for a little while. So had a couple of different stints with with Las Vegas weekly, as a writer as an editor. And so we were still kind of hanging on, you could still kind of I mean, and obviously the weekly still comes out every week. But there was a an era here and maybe the late the late aughts, early teens where there was Las Vegas weekly, there was Vegas, seven, city city life used to be you know, a lot of the kind of sort of mainstay figures in the, in the weekly journalism community here. You know, Andrew Corralejo, Scott Dickens sheets, I mean, those, you know, those guys had a connection with city life. So there was still a feeling that like maybe the last gasp of weekly dumb, perhaps was here in Las Vegas, or one of the, you know, last gasps. But the internet is just it's just been I think we're all still trying to figure it out as professionals and as educators, you know, how do we prepare students for just such a rapidly changing media environment? I think that's just an ongoing question. I certainly don't have the answer to.

Dave Nourse 19:19

Well, that's a great segue to maybe talking about what you do as a teacher. So you have faculty member here in the Hank Greenspun School of Journalism and Media Studies. Tell us about some of the classes that you teach. Tell us what brought you to teaching and you know, maybe just give us a little bit about your philosophy that you take to teaching as well. Tr

Kevin Stoker 19:37

Yeah, well, be sure to back up and also talk about because I know you taught in the architecture school in Utah, CSN as well.

T.R. Witcher 19:45

I did. So I'll start there. Briefly. I got out of graduate school, I came, came out to Las Vegas, and was was out of work for a minute but fell into I'm teaching English composition that at the College of Southern Nevada, which was a lot of fun. I mean, I love writing. And so, and I love teaching, writing. And so that that hasn't, that was 15 years ago, or there abouts. I still love teaching, writing and storytelling. So CSN kind of got me in the door of just being some kind of teacher, you know, being in front of students, you know, putting together a syllabus, et cetera, et cetera, doing a lecture, grading papers, the whole, the whole shebang. And I enjoyed, I enjoyed the teaching, I enjoyed being up in front of I didn't have any anxiety. Any of that I was comfortable with that from from day one. I was still continuing to work as a journalist in town. And I befriended a guy named Robert Dorgan who ran the, the universities, our universities, UNLV is downtown Design Center, which was a facility that the School of Architecture operated out of the Fifth Street School downtown, shout out to the fifth school. It's also where it got married in 2017. So it's so beautiful. It's beautiful, old mission revival grammar school, built in 1936. I went to interview him for a story. And he said, this was 1012 years ago, and he said, Hey, by the way, this was in August. He said, By the way, would you be interested in teaching a class of graduate students, architecture, graduate students, teaching them how to write better? And he said, Don't worry about Don't worry about the students, I'll get, I'll get six or seven students in there. And here's what I can pay you and the pay was nice. And, you know, the class starts in like two weeks. Of course, that's how it works. What do you say? And I said, that sounds like a blast. And that was a great that that began my, my relationship with UNLV. So Robert, brought me in taught that class, we had a great time, just sitting around talking about urbanism, cities, architecture, with architects in training, really helping them sort of think about how they could communicate better. And, and that led to me floating around down there as a writing coach, I guess you could say, Gensler, big architecture studio, big architecture firm, globally, and they have a presence here in Las Vegas, they taught a studio one semester, and I floated around as a kind of, you know, writing code writing teacher, it's okay here, read a couple of these academic, you know, texts in and I'll come in, and we'll talk about them. And I'll give you some, some assignments to write about. And the way I saw myself there is, I would tell them, Look, I'm not a trained architect, I'm not a, you know, and I'm not a, I'm not an academic. I'm just a guy who you can't BS with whatever it is you're writing. And so think of me as the person that you have to the layperson, the intelligent layperson that you're going to deal with in your career as an architect, who if you can tell if you can tell the story of your project, your design, and make it understandable to people like me, and get us engaged, forget all of the I'm not interested in the mumbo jumbo, you know, or you can sound smarter than you are, if you use fancy words, let's kind of leave all that aside, just, you know, be smart, but give it to me straight. And if you can do that, then this was sort of my sort of pitch to them was that that gives you a leg up. Because every designer who you're going to compete with in the future for jobs, everyone can draw, everyone can design, everyone has really cool ideas. What sets you apart, potentially, is that you can tell a better story about your design than someone else. So it's great. So that led to teaching, you know, some introductory classes down at the architecture school. And then finally coming over to the journalism school. And so all of this, all of that kind of comes together here at JMS. So I teach our storytelling and design course, where we're really trying to get students thinking about the intersection of stories and InDesign. So visual storytelling, you know, photography, information, graphics, graphic design, typography, really thinking visually. And so some of the some of the most interesting challenges in the class are really getting kids to sort of sit to think about do you understand your story well enough so that you could sort of tell part of it without words. Can you find the right photo? Can you find the right graphic or the right to a table or chart, or, you know what, why don't we think about putting a map here, or a timeline or some visual thing that maybe if a reader had to read all of that information in a big long chunk of text, their eyes would glaze over and they would they would skim as many of us do, they would skim past it. And maybe that's really important information. And can we give that information in a different way that makes readers say, oh, not only is this like, not boring, this is actually fun. Comic books, we look at comic books and see if there's some lessons that we can sort of gain from, you know, the spatial relationship of elements on the comic book page. So I teach that class, and that lets me leverage some of the, you know, design stuff, architecture, school stuff. One thing that architects architecture students do so well that I would like us to do at JMS is, they do these big, they do their designs, right. And then at the end of the semester, they have to post all of their drawings and their boards and all of their sort of material up on the wall. And people come by professionals come by come by other faculty come by and sort of critique the heck out of it. And it's a really, it's the same, it's their equivalent of sitting in with the editor as they get the pen out. It can be merciless, because they have so many things on their plate, a can your building stand, you know, just the architectural stuff, I go there, and I study and I give comments about the quality of the presentation, you know, the order of the elements that we're seeing on the on on that wall, it's very similar kind of thing to what we're doing and story and design. So getting them to think about and getting our students to think about how we can tell stories visually, and how well you really understand the story that you're trying to tell. So I teach that course, and I teach magazine writing. So feature writing, which is just, that's just leveraging, you know, 20 years or however long it's been just doing that. For a living, I still, I still am a practicing journalist, and I still contribute not so much these days. But for about a decade, I was a contributor at civil engineering, which is engineering magazine, writing about architecture, big civic works, projects, big public works projects all over the world. So if someone builds an airport or museum or a library, university building, hospital, you know, big a subway system, the big sort of infrastructural projects that kind of like make cities run, I wrote about those projects all over the world for about 10 years.

Kevin Stoker 28:02

Now, you're not doing that anymore, you just

T.R. Witcher 28:04

I'm dialing one time, I'm dialing down the full time teaching load friends. That's right, it's a lot of I was feeling stretched a little thin. I still do the occasional story for them. But I was on a pretty, pretty aggressive sort of schedule with them that was difficult to kind of, you know, wanted to be able to give my best to everything I was doing.

Kevin Stoker 28:31

And what what did you learn from that experience? I mean, you're writing for kind of a different audience there.

T.R. Witcher 28:38

You're you're writing for engineers, right? And so the challenge, the big challenge there, and what sold me on on me sort of taking the the work was at the very beginning, they said, Look, we don't have to be a little bit technical. But we really want you writing for lay the layperson. And so you could, I wasn't great at I'm not an engineer wasn't great at math. I wasn't great at you know, understanding the technical stuff at a really profound level, I could understand it that kind of superficial level. I couldn't understand it at a really profound level. But what I could do was I could ask any engineer, you know, if you can explain it to me, kind of in English, so to speak, I can find, I can find the drama of the project. I can find that that really was it. And that's sort of how I approach the story is less in terms of, you know, post tension, concrete beams, et cetera, et cetera, and more. The deadline. Here's the problem. Here's the here's the drama that you're facing on this project, and how do engineers and architects figure out how to solve mouth those problems. And so I think that those stories were pretty popular with readers, because it felt it felt casual, you know, it felt smart, or at least smart enough. But it still felt readable, like you'd want to, you know, didn't feel like you were reading a dry sort of technical manual, felt like you're reading a story with with characters and the building or the structure itself, obviously becomes kind of a character. And you can really sort of celebrate that. So that's maybe that's, that's what I learned is sort of how you can kind of dabble into that sort of technical side, but still still have a pretty strong footing in just the bare bones of a good dramatic story. And that's, you know, people enjoy reading those, and I think maybe they get something, hopefully, you know, readers got some value out of, you know, that way of presenting stories. I also wrote for a number of years a history column, so we would take the history of significant engineering landmark. So the Hoover Dam, I didn't actually write about the Hoover Dam, but that those kinds of the Golden Gate Bridge, the Suez Canal, and Cairo, I wrote about or the ayah Sophia mosque in Istanbul, like buildings that really they legitimately do have rich, a really rich history. You know, notre Dom, burning down a couple of years ago in Paris, was an opportunity for us to kind of dive in and, you know, tell the story of how notre DOM got there and what they're going to do about it. So those stories were were a lot of fun.

Dave Nourse 31:50

One of the things this podcast on our sister podcast with the communication department has been known for us asking a personal question or two. And I feel like we have to ask this because you opened the door. So you got married at the Fifth Street School? I did. You gotta give us the background. I mean, you could have gotten married, you probably you understand architecture so well, that you could have picked the best venue, but you chose the historic Fifth Street School for a reason, you got to let us know.

T.R. Witcher 32:17

Thank you for letting me answer this question. My wife will be delighted. We got engaged and in 2016, and our first thought of venue in Las Vegas, we knew we were gonna get married in Las Vegas, are we you know, we're here our families are here, we thought we would go to the Springs Preserve. So for those of you who might not be familiar, the Springs Preserve as this beautiful kind of campus of museums and educational spaces and gardens, that the Southern Nevada Water Authority runs just west of downtown. So built with a lot of sustainable principles. It's a beautiful kind of architectural campus. And it's one place in Las Vegas where you there, you really don't feel like you're in Las Vegas, you feel like you're in some other kind of place. And we thought, oh, man, this will be this will just be amazing. I won't bore you with the details of like trying to budget a wedding. The Springs Preserve was there were complications there, I'll just say. And we looked around the entire city, we went everywhere from, you know, golf courses to banquet halls. And no place we found felt like it had the kind of character that we were looking for, until we got up. I mean, I knew that I knew the school because I had been teaching up there in the past, and they have a beautiful courtyard, and it just oozes character in a city that can sometimes be challenged for intensity for authenticity, or buildings or places that feel like they have a rich history. And we fell in love with the spot. It was actually was quite an ordeal. You get to get on a waiting list. And it took about a year to get the venue. And they called up one day and this was really my wife, Nicole. She really was aces on this. They called up one day and she had been very proactive about staying after the city. So the city owns the Fifth Street School, right? And they rent they rent the space out. And they called up and they said well, we got two dates, we got June 24 or June 10. And we thought oh my gosh, June, people kind of like bake people are going to be willing to die. At this wedding. It's outdoors in Las Vegas. And smartly. She said give us June 10. We'll roll the dice. And as you all know, like the heat in Vegas doesn't really kick in. I don't think it really kicks into about the second week of June. Like you can catch Memorial Day you get a couple of hints that it's coming But Memorial Day to like the first week or so of June, you might, you might get away with it. And we got away with it. It was beautiful. It was a little bit overcast, but it wasn't. It wasn't hot. We had fans, we had water, we were on standby, but we didn't end up needing any of it was a beautiful, beautiful ceremony, a beautiful venue, and a beautiful building. And so, you know, really, I guess, maybe too close. One of the things that continues to fascinate me about Las Vegas and about writing about cities and thinking about cities in this city, is we have all of these, we have places that other cities are desperately trying to create places of spectacle, right? Like, we literally have the lion's share. We have the market cornered on spectacle. Now, it's a question for us. Can we make more places like the Fifth Street School, like if we can imagine, like 20 more places, I mean, they don't have to be mission revival 1936 era, you know, school houses, but but places where you're there and you just, you feel something, you know, you don't feel like this is just another generic kind of, you know, blah, blah, blah, you feel this place has got quality, this place is special. Imagine if we could build or train the generation of of designers here or train a generation of writers and journalists to sort of push for that. Imagine what kind of city we could we could make that would be pretty awesome. I think.

Kevin Stoker 36:36

Yeah, that's pretty cool. Well, is there anything that we should have asked you that we haven't asked you?

T.R. Witcher 36:43

Not at all? No, I think you guys, I think you guys covered it.

Kevin Stoker 36:49

I you know, tell us a little bit. You know, we've talked about kind of your, your career and everything else in your teaching philosophy and all that you're doing. But we really haven't talked about kind of what, what TR what you enjoy when you're not writing? What what do you do is an escape.

T.R. Witcher 37:13

Photography is become over the years a big sort of escape for me, I'm not a professional photographer. I mean, there are, there are implications for photography in the work that I do. And so maybe I'm never that far away from work kind of stuff. But when I'm out and about, I mean, you dropped me in a city I've never been in with a camera in my hand and no agenda for the day. And that's about, you know, that's having that's about as good as it gets, you know, hanging out with my wife walking around, anywhere, any city, in the US abroad, and just sort of taking pictures. For me, it's not even really about the quality of the picture, the picture is almost kind of an afterthought. It's just the process, it's sort of being in the flow of the day, it's a chance to kind of meet people see things, you know, I mean, what's so great about what we do is that like, we get paid to go talk to people go talk to strangers, go see things. And so even when I'm kind of off the clock, I still enjoy that. Let me just grab a camera and just just go you know, and go see something that I might not have gone and walk down someplace that if I didn't have the camera with me, I might not have or go up to somebody and there might not have bothered if I didn't have the camera with me. So I mean, I'm pretty introverted guy and so the camera also has a way that brings me out of that a little bit you know, it can be it can be sort of a conduit to connect you to something else or someone else. So that's that's a great I mean, I hike I play tennis, you know, I love those those activities too. But you know, put me put me in the town. Like I said, with a camera, and then no map in just in the day to just go wherever those are. Those are the best days.

Kevin Stoker 39:20

What's the most iconic place you've discovered?

T.R. Witcher 39:24

City or landscape? Either one can I give you I'll I'll answer both. most iconic landscape. Boy that's tough. We're living out in the west. We're just we're just spoiled. And I've seen some stuff in in other places that have been pretty cool but I I'll say the first time I drove into Yosemite Valley was pretty that was pretty awe inspiring. I mean, the Grand Canyon too but but I'll but I'll go with Yosemite. That was just something where you really felt like you had no Sure, you know those like The Land Before Time those eases somebody falls down like a portal or something they enter some like forgotten Edenic kind of kind of world that was seeing Yosemite for the first time. City wise, you know, we took our my wife and I took our honeymoon in Portugal. And so certain cities, cities, certain cities just have have in the lore for me, maybe I'd never been there. MEXICO CITY I've never been, but I've always wanted to go is an amazing place to go. New York is great. But Lisbon. And Porto, in Portugal, there's something about those places that just just felt like home. Just, you know, really exciting. I will say, I will also say, maybe the most alien place I've ever been in the most unusual place I've ever been in was Cairo, which felt like I thought New York was kind of the standard of the big bad, you know, Cairo was sort of like, like a next level kind of Proposition just, you know, crazy, alive, alive, alive in a way that I had never experienced in in any city, just teeming with life. And I was there just a couple of years before Tahrir Square and, and the Arab Spring and all of that. That was a really magical, magical place.

Kevin Stoker 41:36

Well, it's been great chatting with you about these things.

T.R. Witcher 41:39

Thank you. Thank you for thank you for letting me come in and talk with you guys. I really, really enjoyed this.

Dave Nourse 41:46

The pleasure was all ours. Thank you.

Kevin Stoker 41:48

Yeah, we appreciate it.

T.R. Witcher 41:50

You bet.