Short Stories with a Big Idea

This Land Press had a strange question—How does Oklahoma exist in the minds of outsiders? In search of an answer, This Land commissioned 46 pieces of flash fiction and accompanying illustrations about Oklahoma, America's 46th state. Most of the authors and illustrators had never been to Oklahoma and provided the outsider perspective This Land was seeking.

The result of this inquiry became a book titled Imaginary Oklahoma. A great deal of care and effort went into this project, and after a few years, This Land's publisher felt that the book's content deserved a larger audience. He tasked Well-Told with evolving the book into something new.

We began by updating the look and feel of the book. Conceptually, we wanted to visually emphasize the layered, ghostly narratives found in many of the stories. Utilizing a bold typographic voice, layers of overlap, and a distinctly Oklahoma color palette enabled the form and content to reflect each other.

Once the book was revised, we began to explore new ways to present the stories to a larger audience. After a lot of conversation, strategy, and reflection, we determined that a podcast was an ideal form to transpose the stories into.

We partnered with the NPR affiliate from Oklahoma State University and AIR, a national radio non-profit, to bring the stories to a broader audience. The result was an eight-episode podcast featuring the authors reading their stories over ethereal soundscapes.

• See the book at This Land Store
• Listen on Apple Podcasts