The Valley Life “correspondents,” in full collaborative mode, at Brix Wine Bar: from left, Erika Kar, Joanna Bastian, Ashley Lodato and Sarah Schrock.
Contrary to popular belief, the Valley Life columnists write not out of corner offices at the Methow Valley News building, but instead from their homes, which can be both isolating and distracting, what with weeds to pull and laundry to fold.
This week, however, in an effort to promote inter-valley unity, the columnists — two of whom had never met — gathered for a glass of Broadbent Vinho Verde Rosé at Brix Wine Bar in Winthrop and wrote their columns.
In the spirit of collaboration, the colleagues each started their columns with the same writing prompt. Every five minutes they passed their laptops to the left, and the next person picked up the thread, writing her own interpretation of what it was like to cover that particular beat.
It wasn’t exactly a turf war, but we can say that the individual characters and idiosyncrasies of each of the Valley Life communities can with little effort be exploited for journalistic purposes.
Lower Valley’s Joanna Bastian suggested: “This column was group-sourced. A fun party trick would be to guess who can identify who wrote what. I’m sure there’s some prize for the winner. Maybe a Mazama store loaf, a Winthrop ice cream cone, a Cinnamon Twisp, or a vacant Carlton General Store.”
