You don’t have to visit Oklahoma to appreciate the land and the people who live there. And the literary magazine This Land is proving it. The monthly publication out of Tulsa is providing “a new voice from the middle of the country” and some pretty sweet paraphernalia to go with it. Their hip logo – a circle around the ax-like silhouette with the words This Land – is emblazoned on everything from hoodies to koozies. (We had to look up koozies, too.)
Frustrated with local journalism, editor/founder/okie Michael Paul Mason launched This Land in 2010 to chronicle life in the middle of America with compelling stories. (Mason knows a thing or two about storytelling; his 2007 article “Dead Men Walking” for Discover magazine ignited the national debate about the treatment of brain injured soldiers.) He also has a soft spot for fiction and poetry (each genre has an editor accepting submissions ‘from California to the New York island’). But This Land is not all prose and product. The well-branded company also produces a TV show, music videos, and engaging short films featuring locals like “True Tulsa: Maureen Egan” about an 89-year-old Irish immigrant, and “Jimmy Washington” about a homeless Cherokee man.