Dear Oklahoma Oklahoma State University

In this episode, which was recorded remotely in November 2020, we meet playwright and Native theater scholar, Dr. Julie Pearson Little Thunder, and take a listen to selections from her latest play, “A Southern Fantasia.” The reading features Elizabeth Randall as Arifiday, Jana Rhoads (Kiowa/Caddo) as Laune, Vanessa Adams Harris (Mvskoke Creek) as Okcate, April Wind (Mvskoke Creek/Cherokee) as Auntie, and Harold Blalock (Eastern Shawnee/Peoria/Cherokee) as Fletcher. Dr. Julie Pearson Little Thunder has a theater degree from the University of Kansas and worked as a co-founder, director and playwright for a Tulsa-based Native theater company from 1993 to 2010. Of mixed Irish, Creek and African-American ancestry, Little Thunder has published over a dozen articles on Native theater and the Native arts for various journals and magazines. Her most recent works include a book, A Life Made With Artists and a screenplay. She talks to Emily and Lindsey about writing “A Southern Fantasia,” which is one of the few pieces of writing she has completed in the last thirty years that isn’t set in Oklahoma. Little Thunder shares her thoughts on writing a play set in Alabama and the complications of Southern history, discusses the challenges of directing a play during the pandemic, and offers her insight into taking on new creative projects in screenwriting. Song Credits:
Sonatina in C Minor by Kevin MacLeod
Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4393-sonatina-in-c-minor
License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license
 
Thinking Music by Kevin MacLeod
Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4522-thinking-music
License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license
 
Umbrella Pants by Kevin MacLeod
Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4559-umbrella-pants
License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license
 
Midnight Tale by Kevin MacLeod
Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4710-midnight-tale
License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license
 
I Feel You by Kevin MacLeod
Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/3894-i-feel-you
License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

In this episode, Rilla Askew, author of four novels, a book of stories, and a collection of creative nonfiction, reads her essay “Dear Tulsa,” which first appeared in the literary journal AGNI. She talks to Emily and Lindsey about writing “Dear Tulsa,” an essay that brings together a traumatic moment from Rilla’s early twenties and the story of Tulsa, Oklahoma. She also shares her thoughts on writing about place and explains what has kept her going creatively throughout the COVID-19 pandemic.
 
Song Credits:
Dirt Rhodes by Kevin MacLeod
Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/3650-dirt-rhodes
License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
 
Cold Funk by Kevin MacLeod
Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/3522-cold-funk
License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

In this live episode, Tulsa Artist Fellow Karl Jones reads from his memoir-in-progress at Curiosity Fest, a daylong festival celebrating literature, history, philosophy, and ethics sponsored by Oklahoma Humanities in Oklahoma City.
Karl, who grew up in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and now lives in Brooklyn, New York, talks about his career as a writer, children’s literature editor at Penguin Random House, performer, and visual artist. While Karl has authored and edited many books for children, his venture into writing a memoir for adults is a new experience. The excerpts he shares with Emily and Lindsey from his memoir-in-progress reflect on moments from his life that explore his sexuality, the rigidity of gender roles, and the vulnerability one must have to write effectively about sensitive topics. He also speaks about the power of silence and how it affects relationships with friends or family, reminisces on his best dance moves at the Silver Star Saloon in the late 1990s, and imagines what a perfect Oklahoma might look like. 
 
Song Credits:
Who Likes to Party by Kevin MacLeod
Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4627-who-likes-to-party 
License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
 
Realizer by Kevin MacLeod
Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/5047-realizer 
License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
 

In this live episode, we kick off the second season of Dear Oklahoma and celebrate Teresa Miller’s induction into the Oklahoma Writers Hall of Fame. This induction ceremony features a conversation with Rilla Askew and Teresa Miller. Special guest P.C. Cast, who is a number one New York Times and USA Today bestselling author, introduces Rilla and Teresa and explains why Teresa has been instrumental to her successful writing career.
Teresa Miller is the author of Remnants of Glory, Family Correspondence, and Means of Transit: A Slightly Embellished Memoir. She contributed an essay honoring her friend Pat Conroy titled, “Pat Conroy and Telephone Noir,” in Our Prince of Scribes: Writers Remember Pat Conroy, and is the co-editor of the anthology, Love Can Be: A Literary Collection about Our Animals. Many people also know Teresa for her literary activism. She is the founder of the Oklahoma Center for Poets and Writers and started the Center’s Celebration of Books event. She hosted the beloved OETA television series “Writing Out Loud,” and interviewed such luminaries as Maya Angelou, Edward Albee, and Isabel Allende. Teresa shares stories about her writing life and about the many writers she has crossed paths with over the years, including Harper Lee and Billie Letts.
Lindsey and Emily chat with Teresa and Rilla about the importance of friendship, the ever-changing publishing industry, and the necessity of taking part in one’s literary community.  

In the final episode of Dear Oklahoma, Season 1, poet John Andrews, author of Colin Is Changing His Name (Sibling Rivalry Press) and a 2018 Oklahoma Book Award finalist, reads a poem he created for our podcast and tells us the reason he stays in Oklahoma.

John, who grew up in Sheridan, Arkansas, chats with Lindsey and Emily about his experiences coming of age as a gay man in the south, explains why a text message breakup makes excellent material for poems, and shares how he reconnected with the man who would become his husband after moving to Stillwater, Oklahoma.

In this episode, Chris Murphy, whose fiction has appeared in Gulf Coast, This Land Press, The Jellyfish Review, decomP, The Tulsa Voice, among other publications, shares a piece called, “An Annual Report of the Seasons,” that is both moving and timely. Chris, a native of the Boston area, gives Lindsey and Emily his impressions of the Oklahoma weather, explains why he loves firefly season in Tahlequah, and mentions that he likes writing late at night with the window open (weather permitting, of course).