We are happy to present the second issue of Okie Modern: A Journal of Contemporary Oklahoma Literature & Art. 

Huge thanks to the staff who made this possible, every one of whom is a volunteer. This little magazine is very much a labor of love. It would not be possible without the hours everyone put into reading submissions and thinking long and hard about what makes a good story, a good poem, and a good work of art. Thanks also to everyone who submitted. Without your words and visual art, this magazine would just be a collection of empty pages. We look forward to reading and publishing more of your work.

Check out the second issue of Okie Modern

Letters from the Editors

“Boy, do we have a treat for you. Included in this second issue we have what is quite possibly the best piece of skateboard writing we’ve ever read; a ghost story that made us gasp-laugh; a tale of folk music and grief that made us cry; our first translation; an elegy for Pitcher, OK; incredible art from ten Oklahoma artists; a story about a Bible camp resurrection; and so much more. We are incredibly thankful for your continued support of this magazine that started as a little idea dreamt up one night after a dreary winter day in England, and has now become a thriving literary platform for Oklahoma creators. Stay tuned for updates as Okie Modern continues to blossom. Submit your work, and read well.”

-Elizabeth J. Wenger, Editor-in-Chief & Madeline C. Roper, Managing Editor

“I’m a transplant to Oklahoma, and still fascinated by it in that particular way you can be when seeing something with new eyes. And yet it became familiar—became home—so quickly, too. It’s this kind of tension that intrigues me about this place. Oklahoma is hospitable and inhospitable. It’s abundant and abandoned. It’s playful and it’s haunted. It’s mythologized and it’s a ‘flyover state.’ The work in this issue inhabits these contradictions. Cowboys meet punk, ghosts cling to the backs of the living, and connection persists alongside the memory of violence. To see Oklahoma clearly is to look directly upon what still haunts it without asking it to resolve its contradictions.”

-Julie Packett, Art Editor

“In this second issue, George McCormick's nonfiction essay ‘Eazy Mart Red Curbs’ skateboards right through modern Oklahoma, with its contemplative, detailed, and grounded prose. We hope you enjoy this view into the Oklahoma literary imagination, and that it inspires you to share more of your own personal stories and reflections as they relate to our state.”

-Corinne Gaston, Nonfiction Editor

“The four fiction pieces in this issue speak to the mystery of Oklahoma, the stories and dangers hidden behind the simple rural life that so many imagine when they think of our state. This is what I’d love to see in future submissions: place-based stories that show us what we rarely see over the fences and beyond the creeks, or what emerges at night on a quiet drive down the backroads. The characters in the stories you’ll read in this issue all speak in voices that feel authentic, not only as Oklahomans, but as human beings grappling with the mysteries of a place that resists simple assumptions. I'd always be happy to read stories that look beyond the familiar and reveal the Oklahoma we don’t always see. I am very honored to be part of the Okie Modern team and to contribute to the diversity of our state's culture and literature.”

-Rachele Salvini, Fiction Editor 

“In this latest issue, the line between urban and country life dissolves, revealing the dynamism of modern Oklahoma living. Steeped in transience and loss, these poems move beyond skylines and foothills to bring readers back to a land of lived experience, defined in part by place, sure, but more so by action. Oklahoma is more than red dirt and scissortails, and the poems featured in this issue exhibit voices of those who have lived beyond sight. We at Okie Modern are proud to publish these poems and hope they bring more of Oklahoma into focus and call others to do the same.”

-Samuel Rucks, Poetry Editor