Cover Story
November 2009
by Michael J. Champlin
The Tulsa Project
The Concept
T here are lots of ways to tell a story. It might have lots of words, it might only have a few. It might be a series of photographs of a place, or a single photograph of an individual. It might be a simple interview, or result from careful feedback from many people. Often these stories are where we'd least expect, whether they're right in front of us or hiding just out of view. In short, that's what we're all about: finding stories and sharing them. And all of that depends on you, the people of our great city. We want your stories. Photographs, articles, videos, art...if you have something you'd like to see featured here, we'd like to see it, too. The sky's the limit.
Main Street in Downtown Tulsa during the prosperous times of middle of the twentieth century. Photo courtesy Tulsa City-County Library System. (link)
There are a lot of reasons to love Tulsa. Its fascinating history, architecture, art community, cost of living...we could go on, but you live here. And you visited this website. Hopefully we don't need to convince you. But just in case...we'd like to think our stories might do just that. Show you things you didn't know about Tulsa, share exciting things that are coming.
The Story
In 2007 I moved back to Tulsa after living in Stillwater for four years. I had just switched majors from architecture and suddenly found myself with a lot of extra time on my hands. I began sketching ideas in my notebook for a new website: a Tulsa blog, which I originally planned to call "Little Big City". My concept for the site would continue to grow, change, and expand, but it wasn't until the fall of 2008 that I decided that I no longer wanted a blog. There's nothing wrong with blogs--I read lots of them--I've just never been very good at writing them. I've started many blogs only to forget about them, or stop posting, or never get them off the ground to begin with. It seemed obvious to me that the Tulsa Project needed to be something more than a blog. It needed to be a magazine.
The format has evolved, but my concept for the Tulsa Project hasn't really changed all that much from the beginning. I felt like there was a need in Tulsa for a unique kind of publication, something that so far hadn't been filled. Something modern, simple, clean, and sophisticated. A magazine with an emphasis on clean design, great photography, and interesting stories. So here we are.
Tulsa's skyline today. Photo by Connor W.
What We Want From You
We want you to help us tell our stories. And we want your stories. And your neighbor's stories. We want stories from all parts of Tulsa (and beyond) about all kind of things, all kinds of people. Because after all, it's the people that truly make Tulsa such a great place to live, work, and create. What, you want us to be more specific? Can do!
The Tulsa Project is an expirement in flexibility. We're looking for all kinds of content, including articles, photos, persons and places of interest, historical factoids, videos, things you think are awesome, things you think aren't awesome...see a trend?
In short, The Tulsa Project isn't just a magazine about Tulsa. It's a magazine by Tulsa. And we can't wait to hear from you.
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