Michael Sean Comerford, an award winning journalist and author, set out to discover the stories of Americans living through the COVID-19 pandemic through his project “The Story Cycle.”
This is not the first slow journalism project Comerford has embarked on. In his first book titled “American Oz,” Comerford details the lives and experiences of carnival workers after traveling with their troupe across the country.
“I wanted to tell the story of carnival workers, but at the time I was very interested in income inequality in America,” Comerford said. “The biggest gap between the rich and the poor in America is in Silicon Valley. Wouldn’t it be wild to be in a carnival in Silicon Valley?”
His most recent project, which is still in development, is a book called “The Story Cycle.” It tells the story of how, beginning in February, Comerford took his bike across Route 66, starting in Chicago and ending in Los Angeles. Along the way, he gathered five minute video stories of Americans of all backgrounds and circumstances to tell the story of COVID-19 in the U.S.
“The inspiration for “The Story Cycle” came to me also in a dream,” Comerford said. “In my dream in February, I did some connecting. I just thought, the biggest story of the year is COVID, slow journalism. A lot of major milestones are coming up: the one year anniversary of COVID, 500,000 dead, the one year anniversary of when COVID was declared a pandemic by the CDC and there was a massive vaccination effort underway. I go, ‘you can’t wait until summer to do this slow journalism thing. You gotta be doing it in the middle of it.’”
During his interview, Comerford said his original idea was to travel from Chicago to San Francisco, but after discussions with his family and the realization that it would be a cold and difficult trip through great mountains, he chose Route 66.
“Most people understand Route 66,” Comerford said. “I’m gonna get tourists on that street, I’m gonna get Americana. And it is about the same mileage [as Chicago to San Francisco] but it’s southwest. I rode out the last week of February.”
On his bike, Comerford attached a red, white and blue sign that read “tell me a story,” along with his email and YouTube links. He said this sign was the key to getting people to talk to him. People stopped him on the road, at Walmart and at cafes to tell him stories.
“I had people walk across parking lots saying ‘you tell me a story,’” Comerford said. “We are all storytellers. The world and history is moved by untold stories, not by the famous people or heads of state. It’s by the people who never get to tell their stories, you and me.”
While his main focus was COVID-19 stories, Comerford said being able to experience many small towns across the western states showed him how many unique cultures there are just from town to town. Comerford missed out on a lot of interesting histories and tales of the places he passed through — but the stories he did get were fascinating.
“Some knew they had a good story because they had had [COVID-19] or something,” Comerford said. “But others said ‘I have no story, I don’t know anyone who’s had it,’ and then came up with amazing theories, came up with more stories than they ever thought.”
“The most astonishing thing about this trip is the very articulate nature of people and the thoughtfulness of their opinions,” he said.
While reflecting on his bike during the trip, Comerford contemplated themes of religion, fatalism and folk wisdom that will likely make it into his book. In addition to those themes, Comerford was amazed at the way people were able to tell their own stories. He said these are the people whose stories are not getting told, and this project set out to tell their stories.
“We live through pandemics, most people live through pandemics,” Comerford said. “How do people live through them? What are the stories they tell themselves? That’s what I wanna find out. What is it like living through a pandemic?”
The videos from “The Story Cycle” are available on YouTube, and the book is set to be released in late summer or early fall of this year.