Episode 9: Binding together Creatives with Tina Wall

Celebrate the upcoming limited edition release of Dustbowl Dreams: The First Year with multi-hyphenate creative Tina Wall. 

Dustbowl Dreams' release party happens April 12, 2026 at Meadow Market Books!

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Thank you for listening to Paper Girl. My name is Melody Coulter. I'm the host, the co-owner of Metal Market Books in Tulsa. And today I have one of our latest launches. It's going to be Dust Bowl Dreams with Tina Wall. Hi, Tina. Hey, Melody. I am super excited. Tell me about tell me a little bit about yourself first, and then we'll dive into Dust Bowl.

SPEAKER_00 0:22

Um, so I am, I use she, her pronouns. I am from originally from Sand Springs, just outside of Tulsa. Uh grew up in the area um when I was 20 or so. I moved away and I lived in Austin for 17 years, and I've been back since Halloween of 22. So been back a few years now, and uh loving it. It's not the Tulsa I grew up in, and that's a good thing.

SPEAKER_01 0:51

Yeah, how's how's it changed in ways that you like it?

SPEAKER_00 0:54

Um, so there is, I mean, when I moved away, it was basically so I could explore um what it was like to be queer without family around every corner. And um like it's so much more accepting of you know, people with I mean, especially like Midtown and and North. Um, the farther south you get, the more conservative it gets. But um, it's it's great. The art scene is a lot more vibrant than I remembered it being. Um, it may have changed there, I'm not sure. Um there's just so much, so many more places that have such an emphasis on community. And um, that's that's a big difference, and I love it.

SPEAKER_01 1:46

I love that. And so uh Dust Bowl Dreams is a community zine. So let's walk through like the origins of Dust Bowl.

SPEAKER_00 1:55

Um, so I have loved zines um since I was 11 or 12, and um I've never made one before this. This is my first actual zine that I put out. Um when I was in Austin, I felt like there wasn't much of an audience for it. Like people will say like Austin's weird, but it's very corporate now, actually. Um yeah, I just didn't know how to find my people there. Um moved back, found them. Um, and I had been thinking, like zines just came up in conversation naturally several times in the course of like I don't know, two or three months. And after the third or fourth time somebody said, You should make a zine. I was like, you know what, maybe I will. And uh it I was toying with the idea and I hadn't really figured out what it was going to look like around the same time. Uh this was um 2024 is when I started in the fall. Um late summer. Um but uh around the same time, uh the Oklahoma Quality Center started looking for like sign opened up signups for for their pride for vendors. And it was, I don't remember the prices, but it was completely unreachable for almost every local queer creator. Like no one could do that. No one could, it was I don't I want to say it was like$500 originally. And they took our feedback, which was great. They went back, reworked it to where there was a scale where there was like corporate sponsorship and like local business, and then there was local artists or something like that. But it was still um upwards of$100, I think, which is um, you know, not too bad, but it was still like not doable for a lot of people. Um, I think at that point it was maybe$250. And as a counter to their pride, um a bunch of folks from uh a queer group on Facebook decided to do community pride. There were a lot of reasons. It was, you know, the pricing was a the big like instigator of that. Um, but it also like the official pride has cops in the pride parade, and pride was a protest against cops, and it's so antithetical to just the spirit of pride. And um so they decided to do their own pride, and I said, I'm gonna make my zine a queer community zine, and I'm gonna come out with the first issue at community pride, which I ended up being a little late for, but uh you know, it was a noble goal, and that's how it started. And um, yeah, I just I did four issues in a year, and I've been taking a break, and I've now had a break. Let's see, the last one came out in July of last year. So I've not I've had a good break, and I've been doing a lot of other stuff, like a lot of art stuff, a lot of collaboration with Jess McCutcheon, um, you know, a number of just sort of dealing dealing with burnout around creating a zine. And um I was getting fewer submissions and like just a lot of things were slowing down. And so I was like, okay, we're gonna take a break, we're gonna make some adjustments, and then when we come back, it'll be the same but different.

SPEAKER_01 5:43

Yeah, so I want to talk about the next iteration of Dust Bowl, but I but first like the the real reason we're all here is um that you are hand binding copies of the first year of Dust Bull Dreams.

SPEAKER_00 6:00

Yeah, I um decided in January of this year, um, again, very similar to making a zine, people had been talking about binding books around me a whole lot. And I was like, that seems fun. And around the first of the year, I was like, I'm gonna learn how to bind books this year. And I had originally been like, I think ever since issue three of the original iteration, I had been thinking about putting out the first year as a collection. And I expected it to be more like a, you know, paperback, just sort of nothing special kind of kind of deal that I could order a ton of and just market. But when I started binding books, I was like, you know what? My scene would be perfect for this. And I bound a couple collections just like as a test, they didn't have great covers or anything like that. I was just like, will this work? What will it look like? And as I was doing that, I was like, you know what, I could make the bound editions of the first year something really special. And so I decided to do that.

SPEAKER_01 7:06

So and you landed on, so there's gonna be 25 copies available.

SPEAKER_00 7:12

25 copies.

SPEAKER_01 7:13

And was that uh does that feel like uh like it was the attainable goal?

SPEAKER_00 7:18

Yes, that was the attainable goal. I was like, I think I can knock 25 out in you know a month or so. I was like, I think I can do that. And um boy, it's getting close, but I still think I can do 25.

SPEAKER_01 7:35

We'll get there. They each each one that you've been able to like share has been so beautiful. It's like really, really meaningful. Have you told the contributors to the zines that this is happening?

SPEAKER_00 7:47

I have not. I intended to send out an email today. So um yeah. If I haven't emailed you and you hear this, I'm so sorry. But you should re you should get an email before this comes out.

SPEAKER_01 8:00

Oh, I I love it. And so you you pulled together queer creators. I've seen flyers at places like Must and stuff, um, and and trying to get like local businesses to keep it the scene. Um are you changing your approach at all for the next one?

SPEAKER_00 8:19

Not, I mean, a a little bit, but not in terms of how I'm getting submissions or how I'm promoting it. Uh so it's still gonna be the same places. Um you can get it online or um let's see, Must carries it, you guys carry it. Um you can also get it at Just Arts or Sky Gallery. I think those are the places you can get it here in Tulsa. Um and I'm still gonna be doing that. Uh the things that are going away is the original four issues had themes that I'd assign to them, and I'm not gonna do themes anymore. I'm going to just accept open submissions constantly and kind of make themes around what I get.

unknown 9:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:08

If things are even themed at all.

SPEAKER_01 9:11

Do you feel like that might like help reduce?

SPEAKER_00 9:14

I do. And one of the things um when I wasn't getting submissions, I asked, I think I put up a thing on Instagram saying, hey, what what ideas would be um, you know, how what would make this more appealing to you? What would make you submit something to it, basically? And a lot of responses I got were um like rolling submissions or open submissions, or you know, just being really clear that, hey, I'm always accepting submissions. Umes, uh, a lot of people were like, I feel like my what I have doesn't really fit the theme. And I'm like, well, a lot of stuff in there doesn't really fit the theme. It's really a loose theme. And um one of the other comments I got was uh, it wasn't clear if you had to be local to Tulsa to submit to it, and you absolutely don't. I have um in the first four, I've gotten submissions from here around locally, um uh Minneapolis, uh Austin from Friends there, um, oh, somewhere else in Texas. I can't remember where it was. Um, but I've gotten some submissions from around and I've also gotten I've also started publishing um submissions from incarcerated queer people. So that was new as of issue four. So thanks to thanks to Wendy at Just Arts for getting me in um contact with with at least one person.

SPEAKER_01 10:49

I mean they've been pulling together, they do the the gallery overall studio road, right? Yes, yeah, um, and we've got postcards about the different pieces they've been working on um artistically, so they're amazing.

SPEAKER_00 11:02

I it's just it's really really cool.

SPEAKER_01 11:05

I think it's like a wonderful way to connect people. I think people don't think about the humanity of incarcerated individuals and reduce them to things that they may or may not have done.

SPEAKER_00 11:17

So yeah, and that's like I'm not even looking looking, I mentioned in the zine, I'm not even like looking up what these people are incarcerated for. I it's not it's not on me uh to, you know, judge people. They're they're you know, incarcerated, serving their time, whatever. Um I just think that everyone's art deserves to be seen, heard, whatever. And I don't think that incarceration should limit that. Yeah, but yeah, Just Arts is great. They do all that, and they have I think monthly letter writing nights, and they're starting an abolitionist book club as well. I know. I can't remember the first book, but they're gonna start doing that.

SPEAKER_01 12:08

We'll hunt it down. I'll put it in the show notes.

SPEAKER_00 12:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:11

No, that's great. So you you've got this like widespread community, and and you're pulling together. What was the process like getting the first zine like up and running? Because you said this is your first scene, so like It was amazing.

SPEAKER_00 12:27

I had the idea, and I I wrote a piece for it, and I the biggest thing was I went to a poetry open mic with Jess McCutcheon, and she introduced me to Xinya, and I'm sorry, Xinya, I don't know how to pronounce your last name. Um, but he's amazing. Um, but he was hosting the open mic, and he let me get up in the middle of it and like plug my my my zine and be like, hey, I'm getting submissions for this. And I got so many submissions. I got um stuff from people I didn't know, um Quinn Carver Johnson, I don't know if you're familiar, they're they're amazing, and they sent so many poems and photographs that are in there, and I just I did not have the heart to turn down anything that I received, and that um just getting in the door in there like was amazing. And that's yeah. So yeah, I just kind of like I was like, hey, give me stuff, and yeah, Jess gave me stuff, Samantha Ryan's got stuff in there.

SPEAKER_01 13:34

I love it. There we go, another Sam mentioned.

SPEAKER_00 13:36

Yep, had to get had to get it in there.

SPEAKER_01 13:39

That's the requirement to be on Paper Girl now, is you have to know Sam and Doug.

SPEAKER_00 13:45

She essentially wrote uh fan fiction for her characters and pride. And it's so cute. It's the cutest little cozy winter story. I love it.

SPEAKER_01 13:56

I have yet to see a bad thing from her. And yeah, I think she's also probably like all of us, very careful about like what put gets put out, but everything she puts out is like, damn, this is so good. So I want to see what like a bad thing looks like for her. So you you're a multi-hyphenate when it comes to the arts.

SPEAKER_00 14:17

Yeah, um, I on my my I don't make a business card, I make a business zine. Because of course I do. Um, this is gonna take a few minutes to I was like, I need multiple pages. Um, but no, I uh I call myself an art anarchist on that, and I don't really, I mean it feels right, I don't really know what that means. Like, I mean I don't subscribe to any singular like uh medium. I don't um I don't I don't pay attention to rules about anything. I just kind of do what I want and that's fine.

SPEAKER_01 15:02

I I love that because that's like that's been like a a recurring topic in my mind is is the act of creation and not caring if it's conventionally good, but just taking the time to to have something in your brain that you feel like absolutely has to be tangible and and exist in the world, and you know, just really connecting with the artist. I I feel very like woo-woo, artsy, spiritual nonsense lately because I've been doing the artist way, and I'm like, yeah. I um with your artist and let the universe guide you.

SPEAKER_00 15:43

I grew up loving art but seeing myself as outside of it. Like I wasn't conventionally good at drawing, and so I was just like, I can't make art. That's I don't know how it works. It's fine. I don't want to don't wanna but I hung out with artists constantly. I in high school I dated a man for two years, well, a boy for two years, was totally fine. Um who was an artist, and he's still an artist, and he's an amazing artist. And um like I was always so inspired to be around artists and to read um you know, literary fiction and all this, and I just loved it, but I saw myself as outside that. I'm like, no, I'm I can't do that. I like math. I'm very, I don't know, left-brained or whatever it is. And um COVID hit, and a friend of mine, like right when the guidelines started loosening up a little bit, uh, a group of friends of mine decided to um do a we were in it, it was essentially a duplex, but we had both sides of it. And it was out in the middle of the woods, and there was like nothing around. And like originally we had great plans to like, oh, let's just be in nature and we'll go fishing and hiking and we got high and painted all weekend, is what happened. Um but a friend of mine had brought uh to that, she had brought paint and supplies to do fluid acrylic painting. And I'm not good, like I wasn't good at art, but I'm good with colors. And she showed me how to do it, and I just like it hit, and I was like, this is amazing, like letting go of preconceived notions of what I can and can't do. And just and the way fluid art is, it moves around so much that you can't you have some control, but you don't know what it's going to be. So it was also an exercise in giving up control. And that really kicked everything off. Um, I guess before that I was a bit of a fiber artist. I knit all the time, but um, I haven't done that in a few years. But uh yeah, so um to to being surrounded by art and literature to knitting to suddenly now this is what I do.

SPEAKER_01 18:16

Um something that I I love um that we carry in store from you. We carry a lot of really, really cool things specifically from you. Um and your your acrylic paintings are part of like why we have the really awesome paint grouping bookmarks we have. Um but what I really love and point to all the time is your collages, those printed collages that are literary inspired.

SPEAKER_00 18:44

Yeah, um, it's a series that I started doing. Um I don't remember what like inspired me to do it, but I was like, I think I'm gonna, I had this acrylic painting that I did, and I was like, I think I'm gonna, I think I'm gonna like just draw a woman on this and add because it's not really collage, it's more of a mixed media painting. Yeah. Um, but yeah, I just I drew a woman on there, and I mean I traced, I didn't draw, but um, you know, I got I got her on there, and then I just started adding things to it, and I was like, I'm going to make her flower crown out of paper or whatever. And it's the whole thing is inspired by a book called that one, anyway, is uh inspired by a book called I think Hollow Girls by uh Crystal Sutherland, I think. Um but I read it and there was a line that just stuck out and it describes um a living plant growing out of a photograph, a photograph of someone, and I was just like, this how can I like get the vibe of that, even if I don't get the like exact thing going on. And yeah, and then the other one is based on um a story in I think it's her I think it's her body and other parties, maybe um and it's uh this the story there is a fever dream that's basically uh told in the the form of like a script of SVU. And it's uh from a dream that uh the Benson character had. Uh she dreams of a woman whose eyes are hollow and has bells behind her eyes, like I or bells where her eyes are supposed to be. And um the whole idea behind this series is that like I'm trying to take concepts that are body horror and make them into something beautiful. Um, just to show that there's a spectrum. Basically, like, yeah, it's body horror, but also it's nice.

SPEAKER_01 21:02

It was the energy that like I got um this tattoo from Sidequest and Shenanigans um that was inspired by one of Josh's lines, pull the flowers from your mouth. And when I was like, I I need this tattoo, and I was like, I don't know how to like communicate that line and the reaction that I had to it because I don't want to just like tattoo the lines on the body, um, because I'm very wary of like handwriting tattoos.

SPEAKER_00 21:35

And text never like ages well in tattoos, really. It's very tricky.

SPEAKER_01 21:40

And my body like blows out lines constantly, and I'm like, oh man, there's nothing I would hate more than to like desecrate Josh's words by taking a bad tattoo. Um but but I sent my tattooist your your paintings. Oh my gosh. And was like, this is the energy I'm looking for. Something that's like body horror but beautiful, and we landed on the sword swallowing woman, but instead of swallow sw swallowing swords, she's swallowing cherry blossom stems, and like it came out so beautifully. It was like this really fun mishmash of like Josh and Jess's work and your work, and then combining with Rue's art, and like it's very, very cool.

SPEAKER_00 22:25

I just yeah, I yeah, I don't really know where the the idea really originated. I mean, I've got those and I've got I've got so many more ideas. Like every time I come across a line while I'm reading, um, that I'm like, oh, that might make an interesting piece. I just like I read on Kindle and I just highlight it, and I have a whole text document of like things that could potentially be ideas if I figure them out.

SPEAKER_01 22:50

Oh man, the e-reader just like is a a marvelous magical piece of technology for collecting all of the quotes and stuff. I when I write book reviews, I read them on my Kindle so that I can highlight the lines because I quote the book in my reviews.

SPEAKER_00 23:07

And so I like anytime I want to save one, I'm like, boom, here we go. It's amazing. And yeah, I to be able to just look up a word if you don't know it or translate it, or and I I say Kindle, I do have a Kindle device. I've had this one for over a decade now, I think. Um, but I did jailbreak my Kindle, so I'm free of Amazon. I am Amazon's tethers.

SPEAKER_01 23:35

I watched a video of a guy jailbreaking his Kindle and like he explains how to do it and all of that. And he's like, and it's legal, so you want and I'm like, okay, yeah. I mean, like, I was only like barely worried about that. Um, but I was just like, what if I fuck this up? And he's like, you can't fuck this up. And you're like, okay. And I'm like, am I ready to take the plunge?

SPEAKER_00 23:54

Yeah, the the Kindle framework is still still technically on my Kindle. It's like they're side loaded, yeah, essentially. So like I can switch between the jailbroken or the Amazon one. I just never do.

SPEAKER_01 24:08

Yeah, and no, because like the the device itself is such a fun and amazing feat of technology. And I I sprung for a scribe and they're amazing devices. I love the e-ink. I it's yeah delightful. It just sucks being trapped in Amazon Hell. And like, you know, I when I want to buy like ebooks from Bookshop and they're not DRM free, then I'm like, gotta go do the whole rig and roll. Yeah. And you know, my my big thing I've a scene called How to De-Amazon Your Reading. And I'm like, I get it. I love my Kindle so much. Yeah. But I it's it's bad for our it's bad for artists. Yeah. And it's the hardest thing watching people like, oh God, somebody commented on we're doing a poetry release um the day before Dustville Games, and someone was like, I'll buy the book on Amazon. And I was like, or you can buy a copy here.

SPEAKER_00 25:13

Please don't. And if you are, don't comment that on the bookshop.

SPEAKER_01 25:17

It was oh man, my tummy hurts.

SPEAKER_00 25:19

Yeah, that's painful.

SPEAKER_01 25:22

Oh, like, please, guys. So you write poetry. I want to talk to my gosh.

SPEAKER_00 25:30

Um, I do I do write some poetry, not a lot, and none of it has officially been published yet. Um, but uh I I work on I I I tinker with poetry.

SPEAKER_01 25:46

Um I I journal in poetry too, so with the exception of my uh of my little chat book, I'm most of my poetry stays in my eyes only.

SPEAKER_00 26:00

I have um I have one poem, and it's the one I read all the time. I'll read it at our open mic too. Um but I saw um I've continued to I mentioned my high school artist boyfriend before, and I've continued to talk with him on and off for the 25 years since high school. And, you know, we're still friends, and he came up to visit one time, and we drove around our hometown, and we just talked, and we drove around for like two and a half hours just talking. And for three days after he left, I just like was chatting with him and spending time with myself and just deconstructing everything that had gone wrong and right in our relationship, and like just he didn't have a lot of memories of any of it, and like I remembered everything. And um while I was doing that, like a single line just stuck in my head, and I was like, I'm gonna make a poem about this, and that's the title, and I did, and um then Jess asked me to write an essay for um her uh oh my gosh, what is the name of it? Um her her homemaking collection. No, that's the parenting one, it's the other one. Uh what we call home. That's it. I was like, I came up with the title and I can't even remember it. But um she asked me to write an essay for that, and I did, and as it got closer to publishing, she was like, Everyone's gonna read something. You don't have to read that because it's a really long essay and it's very traumatic. It's about my first marriage. And so I turned that into a poem also. I just like I made a poem about the essay, and I read it once, and I dissociated the entire time, and I'm never going to do it again. I'm never going to read it again. But writing that, I was like, you know, if I did both of these men live in Texas because my high school boyfriend moved to Texas. That's the title. I'm doing a collection. Yes. And uh, yeah. And this is using the phrase ex very broadly. Um, I'm also going to be contemplating ex-friendships, ex-jobs, ex apartments. Like, and then the um, and this is a big uh thanks to Dolly as I am for the idea. The very, I think it's gonna end up being the very last poem in the collection will be about Texas itself is the ex.

SPEAKER_01 28:48

There you go.

SPEAKER_00 28:49

But yeah, that was that was Dolly's idea. And yeah, I've been working on that, but kind of slowly it's taken a backseat to binding zines because that's my life right now.

SPEAKER_01 29:00

You gotta all the art, so much time, so much art, so little time.

SPEAKER_00 29:05

And I have a day job that I work 25 to 30 hours a week at too. And it's oh my god, I wish I wish I could work less, but capitalism.

SPEAKER_01 29:15

The chapter that held. You have a great note in in the very beginning, like in the very first scene about capitalism and like capitalism versus um versus commerce, yeah. Commerce and like which was nice because as a business owner, sometimes I'm like, oh no, I'm a capitalist, and then I'm like, no, I'm I'm participating in commerce, and like there's a difference, and there's no ethical consumption in capitalism, but like the the space that we occupy in commerce is a unique space. Yeah, it's and then as artists like trying to survive in the United States, you know, we're doing our best.

SPEAKER_00 30:01

In the United States when when everything is trying to suppress art and we'll only get worse.

SPEAKER_01 30:07

It's like in a in a like bookstores, art stores, community spaces where they can create like must is such an incredibly important part of existing in Tulsa right now.

SPEAKER_00 30:20

Oh my god, I love those. I love those guys. They're so great. It's just um yeah, Jess and I were talking, I think, I think just I think just Saturday, just over the weekend, um, about how like the the macro of the world sucks. Like the giant, the world as a whole sucks, and there's not a lot we as individuals can do to really change that on a large scale. Like, yeah, we can protest, we can do, you know, all the all the usual stuff, but like there's not there's not a lot we can do. Like people are still in charge that aren't us.

SPEAKER_01 31:02

We're not jumping on a flotilla anytime soon to deliver aid to Gaza. Right. It's not something we have the ability to do.

SPEAKER_00 31:10

Right. Because I mean that while it is noble, it also takes, you know, time away from your home and your job. And um in the US we don't have worker protection, so you probably will come back and not have a job. But yeah, it's it's really challenging. And um but but we have to look at the micro level. We have to look at building community, um being as there for our community members as we can be. If you know, if someone's sick, bring them some soup or juice or whatever. Um, like just anything, any little thing helps. Jess and I do, or Jess and her husband do. I I have started going and I almost never miss. Um they do almost weekly board game days, and then they do monthly short story nights. And the short story nights are my favorite. Um, like I love board games, but we all get in a room and someone reads a story, and it can be anything, it has to be published, and it can't be written by them. So, like, you know, we'll bring a collection and somebody will read whatever. Um, I'm always reading terrible, horrible things that I have to stop reading when her child bucks in the room. I'm like, oh no, this will give him nightmares. I have to stop. Um but uh anyway, one person will read and we take turns reading stories, and while they're reading, we're usually doing things that are offline, like everybody else. Like, there's almost always a puzzle on the table. And um towards the end of after they finished the puzzle, it was just yesterday that was our last one. After they finished the puzzle yesterday, Jess was working on some needlework, and I was binding books and listening to someone read, and it was great. And I think events like that and things like that are really gonna be what saves our sanity, if nothing else.

SPEAKER_01 33:22

It wasn't like the intent there wasn't to be writing, there was a little bit of an open mic, but like just to spend time around other people who participate in that work. And uh it was it was over at Vondel Burns' place with they have like this hidden talents exhibit that was up closed yesterday or Saturday, and then it's gonna be popping up at a few different others for a tour. Um, but it's about you know, we have this opportunity to watch process videos for all of these artists who don't necessarily have like big backing, like we're probably not going to see them hanging out in an exhibit at Philbrook soon. Yeah. But but give them an opportunity to share their work and show their processes and talk about it, and like it's so grounding to get off my phone and just participate in a community. And I've been talking with Mike Ward from Memory Cycle about all of this, and like I say from like it's his business.

SPEAKER_00 34:24

It is his business, it is just him, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 34:26

No, he's he's great. Um and and he comes in the shop a lot um about getting off the phone and participating, because we like to make art, and it's hard to do that when you don't have experiences, because art is all about sharing emotional reactions to experiences. And if you're on your phone, you're not experiencing anything, you're watching other people experience things and document that. And like outside of like the FOMO that I feel when I'm scrolling Facebook, because I'll look at all these cool things my friends did that I wasn't there for, I'm like, oh, also I just am missing out on experiencing things in general because here I am scrolling Facebook and it's 6 30 on a Friday, and I could be not in my house doing something, or I could be in my house interacting with my kids or reading a book or needlepoint or you know, a thousand.

SPEAKER_00 35:27

Any number of things, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 35:28

Any number of things, and here I am watching other people live their lives, and I don't like that.

SPEAKER_00 35:33

Yeah. Um it just it's so important for for community to just um to just exist. Um, I mean, there's always a community, but you have to find like your people, and um and if you haven't, then you know, they're out there. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 35:54

Go around, look at the there's community boards, uh especially like all the local restaurants and stuff. Like I think we bumped into our first zine in the wild, not at like a place you would expect zines. Yeah. At Lone Wolf. Oh, nice. We were like in line getting ready to order, and we looked at the windowsill, and there was a pile of zines. And I was like, oh, this isn't where I would have expected to find a zine.

SPEAKER_00 36:17

That's actually um not at all surprising to me because the owners of Lone Wolf, and then also Chicken and the Wolf and their new place. Um, I went to high school with them. And I didn't know him very well, but he was in art class with my high school artist boyfriend.

unknown 36:38

Oh, I love it.

SPEAKER_00 36:39

So, like, I didn't know him very well. I knew um his wife a lot more and her brother. Um, but yeah, I I moved back and I was like, oh, they got married and they have really great restaurants.

SPEAKER_01 36:52

That's we have Katie Coffee um is a comedy friend of mine, and she did a show in the shop this weekend, and um she she works at some kind of like higher like restaurant group level in some capacity for them. I don't know or the details and don't really care. Um, but just like the the energy that she brings when she gets off work and comes and and hangs out with us is very like, oh, these are people that are trying to like encourage community spaces. They're cool. I put posters up there all the time for like improv shows and and stuff.

SPEAKER_00 37:29

Um and that's I haven't caught back up with them since they moved. They seem since I moved back, they seem quite busy. I've not talked to them in 25 years. Um, but uh like they were like a fantastic, just cool little punk skater kids, man. And I love I love seeing them come up. They're doing great. Well, and they've got a great product.

SPEAKER_01 37:51

You can tell that it comes from people that have like a lot of care in their stuff. But all of that to say that like if you just like pause a moment when you're out and about, just get out and about first. Step one, exit your house. And step two, when you're out of your house, look, read the telephone polls. People are still putting flyers on the telephone polls. I love it. And and it's it just look at those. Look at the telephone polls when you're waiting in line at the coffee shop. Look at the community board, look at the look at the walls, look at the window when you're walking by it. Like there's there's stuff going on, and there's a community you can find. And and you moved back, and and how did you find your community?

SPEAKER_00 38:36

Um uh very um interestingly. Uh no, so a cousin, my cousin um has been, she never really left. I mean, she grew up outside of Tulsa and went to college outside of Tulsa, but she's been here um ever since. And she started off her adult life doing journalism. And she's since worked for um when it was still around, uh, Urban Tulsa Weekly, she did um This Land, she did um Tulsa Business Journal, um, I think she did Tulsa Kids. I don't I she was all over the place. Um and when she uh oh, and then her husband uh was uh previously the executive director, I think, of Kendall Whittier Main Street. Um so between the two of them, they know everyone.

unknown 39:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 39:33

And um I had I had kept up with her and she kept talking about how cool Whitti Books was. And so I moved back. And one of the first things I saw when I was just scrolling on Facebook, um, I had followed Whitti Books based on her recommendations. And one of the first things I saw was they were doing a horror book club. And I was like, I read almost exclusively horror. I'm going to go to that. And, you know, through that I met Victoria and um HV and a lot of other people. Uh and when Horns and Rattles did their um their business launch party, they didn't have a book yet. Um Victoria had told me that I had previously told me that I needed to meet Jess because I was talking board games with Victoria, and she was like, You should meet Jess. Her and her husband have so many board games, and they have regular board game nights. And I was like, Okay, that's cool. And so I saw her at the um at the launch for this, and I just walked up to her and I was like, You're Jess McCutcheon, right? And she was like, Yeah. And I was like, Victoria said we need to hang out and play board games, and Jess points over at her husband and she goes, That's my husband and our friend. Our next board game day is tomorrow. Uh, give them your number and we'll send you the address.

SPEAKER_01 40:57

Perfect.

SPEAKER_00 40:58

And so we got home, and my husband and I were like, Well, do we do we go to this board game? We don't know these people. And I was like, eh, I think they're pretty well vetted. I think we can go. And so we went, and then that was that. Jess and I were instant besties almost basically, and um, it feels like I've known her my entire life. Yeah. Um, you guys have- And then, yeah, from and then from Jess, I've met everyone else, so really.

SPEAKER_01 41:29

Oh, but she's a real launch pad to like meeting other people.

SPEAKER_00 41:33

She's so outgoing.

SPEAKER_01 41:36

So you guys have together um No Maiden's Art Collective. Tell me more about that.

SPEAKER_00 41:42

Um, so that is we we originally started. I have some physical disabilities, and setting up at a market is hard for me, but I had had some success at markets selling my art. And Jess wanted to table and sell. Um, she had some screen print and black printed clothing, upcycled clothing that she had had gotten. Um, she wanted to sell those and her books and just like whatever other art project that she ends up with like a lot of that doesn't really have a good home. And we we did we did an event together under my my previous business name. And she was able to help with the setup. I was able to help her learn how a market works and how to sell things and do all that side of it. And we did that for a while, and I feel like I feel like within two or three months of our first one, we were like, we should like make a thing. We should have a business. And we were I was like, well, what if we made a space for people who, you know, don't have the ability to always be at markets or can't do it themselves? Um or you know, maybe they only have like I think we're out of them currently, but we had had Samantha Ryan's book, and that was when she only had Pride Out. We were like, well, what if we, you know, maybe they only have one book or, you know, one whatever that they have to sell and or handful of prints, and it's not worth them getting a whole table for five prints. Um and so we were like, well, what if we did like an artist collective where, you know, we can trade off the labor, like they can come help us out, um, and we can be there to sell their stuff if they can't make it. And um, it's still kind of in baby stages. Um we've got the first six months down, and then definitely took January and February off because they're extremely slow in sales anyway. It's not Worth setting up at a market in those months for the most part. And we've kind of we've changed a few contractual things and you know and yeah, we we're still tweaking it, but um we think the idea is solid. We're like, you know, this is it's great. Um you know, it's a it's a way to, again, it's community. It's you know, inviting people within the community to come and like help, you know, help each other out, basically.

SPEAKER_01 44:39

I love it so much. I'm pulling up my calendar here so I can make sure I've got a gift the right date for um the launch parties. Because I was about to say 11th, but the 11th's a Saturday. It's the 12th. Yes. It's a busy weekend for you. It's gonna be, yeah. We've got uh I've got my nephew's birthday party on that Saturday. Um, we're helping Kelly Morris launch her poetry collection, her newest one. She's got a couple on the shelves already, but her newest poetry collection's coming out, and then we'll cap off the weekend with Dustful Dreams and the launch of the first year, the limited edition handbound volumes. And uh we're doing a lot of cool stuff with that, right?

SPEAKER_00 45:22

Yeah. Um, in theory, I will also have the fifth issue of the zine ready then. We'll see if that is reality, but that's the goal. Um and yeah, it's gonna be four four to seven, isn't the time we set it up? Four to seven. Four to seven. So for the part where the store hours are open, we're going to have um a table set up. People can come and make blackout poetry or collage. Um, Jess will be leading that for the most part, um, just so that I'm free. Um, but we're gonna have those activities. People will be able to submit things that they make immediately. Um, I don't know what that looks like yet, but we'll get there. Um and then um yeah, we're gonna have snacks and drinks and sort of fun stuff. And then once the shop closes, uh, Jenya, who I mentioned earlier, will be facilitating an open mic for us. So um I'm hoping to be able to get some contributors to come out and read, read things that they have included in the zine. And uh yeah, and then yeah, it'll also be just open to whoever wants to read something.

SPEAKER_01 46:36

Yeah, I I love it. I it's been such a joy. Jared saw Dustful Dreams and was like, we need to carry this zine in there, because Jared's big in his zines. Like, we need to carry Dustful Dreams, which like led us to reach out, but then also you saw the call for artists. And so, in addition to your mixed media prints and your gorgeous bookmarks, um, you have zine and collage kits, and then through no maidens, blackout poetry kits. So you've I mean, the the store the shop is vibrant and like an interactive space so much because of you. And and just like that has been such a wonderful surprise for me, which leads me into the question that I ask everybody at the end of this, which is being a part of Tulsa's literary and creative community. What has been the most interesting or surprising part of that for you?

SPEAKER_00 47:39

Um really, it's how many like just seeing that Tulsa has a literary community when I moved back. Um because when I left, we had uh I I mean we had just the corporate bookshops. We didn't have the corporate bookshops and peace of mind. I can't leave out peace of mind. But um, but that was all we really had. And I remember like when I was a kid always wishing that we had, you know, bookstores like I would see on TV or something, the little cozy shops or or or you know, the shops that have the weird stuff or you know, just whatever. And um that didn't exist. And I moved back and it did. And I don't know what happened, but I'm really happy about it.

SPEAKER_01 48:31

It's such a joy. I watching the city grow, and there have been pains like losing Woody books was devastating.

SPEAKER_00 48:40

Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_01 48:41

Fulton Street closing, even Eleanor's that was in Mother Road Market, like watching a children's bookstore close down was like rough.

SPEAKER_00 48:51

But every time something pops up and it like it's it's clear the community wants it, and so it's just it's just finding the right um iteration.

SPEAKER_01 49:04

Yeah, really finding finding the groove, but like the community is so supportive of of this opportunity, and I think that's the the people, this is another conversation I had with Mike, was that the the people are what makes Tulsa so special because if you strip the people away from it, just a normal single city, yeah. Um, but the community we have here is really something special. And I think if you took this group of people and put them anywhere, they would help each other thrive.

SPEAKER_00 49:39

Yeah, it's it's real cool here. Um, I did not expect like honestly, I moved back to Tulsa thinking it would be a temporary stop for until we moved somewhere else. Like my family had um a vacant house because my grandfather had passed away and we needed we needed to leave Austin. Like I think it was I think my husband had lost his job, and I was like, well, I don't think we can do the mortgage on just my paycheck, and it was a big conversation, but I was like, well, my family has this vacant house. Let's let's go land there for a while. We won't have to do we'll only have to pay like utilities, there won't be rent or anything. Um, and then we'll figure out what we want to do. And while we were still in that house, I met Jess, I made friends, and I was like, Well, what we're doing, I guess, is staying here.

SPEAKER_01 50:31

You're like, uh oh, I grew roots.

SPEAKER_00 50:33

Oh no. Oh no, I tried to avoid Tulsa for so long, and now it's now I'm just here.

SPEAKER_01 50:40

Well, I'm glad you're here. I'm so glad our paths have crossed. Me too. And uh you can catch the first year of Dustbowl Dreams. Come take a look, grab yourself a limited edition copy um on April 12th from four to seven here at Meadow Market. You can follow Dustbowl Dreams on Instagram. Um, it is reviving. You can see the pictures and videos of um the new bindings and get your work ready and start submitting because it's time to make more zines.

SPEAKER_00 51:11

And if you have things, you can submit to dustbolddreams918 at gmail.com. Just shoot me an email. I love I love submissions.

SPEAKER_01 51:20

I love it. Well, thank you so much for coming on Castina, and thank you so much for listening to Papergirl.