Oklahoma really is Native America. Aside from Alaska or New Mexico, there aren’t many states like it. I have found that because I don’t really have to think about the ways that I am alone or different as a Native person, my mind is freed up to focus on my craft and practice. There is something to be said about that. For Native people, I don’t think it is talked about enough.

There are approximately 200 books in my Oklahoma Writing bookcase. All of those books have influenced me—they share with me their craft knowledge, their methods of representing our state and people.

I thought I’d open this new chapter of Archive Serendipities with a list because it’s difficult to explain to people the depth and breadth of archival materials on Oklahoma literary history, and, for me, primarily, the history of Oklahoma poets and poetry.

We established Okie Modern to promote the literature of a state with a complicated historical inheritance–a place once called “No Man’s Land.” We are a journal that believes literature and life can and do flourish in the so-called “flyover” regions of our country–in the places derided for their supposed emptiness, shrouded in myth and obscured by stereotypes.