A woman snug, tight in a steel-boned corset. A man in a double-brimmed hat, puffing a calabash pipe. Brass-rimmed goggles, a necessity on airship voyages. A brass and leather spyglass, for solving mysteries, of course. A vintage mechanical pocket watch and fob.

All were common sights at OctopodiCon 2012, a celebration of all things steampunk, held in Oklahoma City in October.

Steampunk literature and culture venerate the Victorian era, the second half of the 19th century. Steampunk is first and foremost a genre of literature, a mix of science fiction, fantasy and alternate history that draws upon the people and paraphernalia of the steam-powered age.

Never heard of steampunk? Ever heard of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen? Ever heard of Dr. Who? Ever heard of Girl Genius? Ever heard of Myst? If so, then you have heard of various shades of steampunk.

“Most people have seen steampunk, even if they aren’t aware that that is what it is called,” says Katrina “Kit” Holley, a Norman attorney and OctopodiCon organizer. “Lawyer by day, steampunk prima donna by night,” she jokes.

Noddy Brothers lives in the Oklahoma City suburb of Warr Acres and works as a receptionist at Oklahoma City’s Oklahoma School of Science and Mathematics. Brothers was chair of OctopodiCon 2012.

“First and foremost, (steampunk) is an attitude – exploratory, wondering, creative,” Brother says. “It was a very innovative time period. Telephones, telegraphs, automobiles…you’ve got the whole world opening up. They went everywhere; they did everything.”

It was indeed a remarkable time for literature, the time of H.G. Wells, Jules Verne, Arthur Conan Doyle and Edgar Allan Poe. The time of beloved characters such as Sherlock Holmes and Van Helsing, and much-feared ones like Dracula and Frankenstein. Modern steampunk fiction revisits that fascinating age.

According to OctopodiCon’s website, “Steampunk is a retro-futuristic subgenre of speculative fiction, set in or thematically referring to an alternate Victorian period during which the technologies of the Industrial Revolution achieve fantastic sophistication and power.”  

Oklahomans and visitors from around the world celebrated the steampunk subgenre and subculture with classes, authors, art, gaming, a masquerade ball, a charity auction and even a radio-controlled mini-airship race. A few weeks before the convention, Holley says almost 300 people were pre-registered, and two to three times that many were expected to attend.

Both Brothers and Holley were pointed in the direction of steampunk by their youthful love for Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes. Holley also mentioned Verne’s 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea and the science fiction of H.G. Wells. “I have always enjoyed anything with a Victorian flair to it,” she says.

In 2011, both women attended what was probably the first statewide steampunk event, the Oklahoma Steampunk Exposition. A few exposition attendees, including Brothers and Holley, wanted to keep the steampunk fire burning, so they banded together to put on OctopodiCon 2012.

To Holley, the vintage costuming is definitely part of the attraction. She sews and crafts many of her own pieces. “Half the fun is getting to dress up and show off all the stuff you have found and created. It gives me a creative outlet that I don’t get in my job.”

Motherhood is a job which charges completely inexperienced women to care for, keep alive and mold into bright minds the next generation of the human race. It takes determination, heart and strength. It also takes a sense of humor. Tulsa-born Mary Ann Zoellner wrote the book on it.

Zoellner and her friends hatched the idea for the hilarious, unabashed book, Sh*tty Mom, the Parenting Guide for the Rest of Us over margaritas one evening. Zoellner and co-authors Karen Moline and Alice Ybarbo were swapping nitty-gritty and completely comical tales of stumbling through motherhood. They soon had enough material that a book had to be written.

They wrote a first draft and enlisted comedian Laurie Kilmartin to add her not-so-finest motherhood moments and a little bit of funny to their snark.

The result, Zoellner hopes, will help the rest of us laugh at our less-than-perfect parenting moments. It blows the lid off all the thoughts most moms – and dads, for that matter – have had but were too afraid to say out loud.
 
Zoellner is an Emmy Award-winning producer who lives in New York City and works on NBC’s Today. She and her husband have two daughters and a very full plate. Zoellner is funny and lively and someone you’d love to have a margarita with. She made time to chat briefly between tucking in her girls and running against deadline for a Today show segment.

Oklahoma Magazine: Do you get home often?
Mary Ann Zoellner: Because of family we always go back. I try to do stories that bring me near them.

OM: You’ve got so much going on. What does a typical day look like for you?
MAZ: Every day is something different most of the time. I’ve been a producer so long. I love that every day is so different. Every day is a big surprise.

OM: How do you balance it all?
MAZ: It’s hard. That’s why I’m a sh*tty mom. Some days my kids get 10 minutes. But it’s the net that matters. You just try to make sure it all balances out.

OM: Where did the idea for this book come from?
MAZ: Three of us came up with the idea over margaritas…maybe too many margaritas. We came up with the idea for Sh*tty Mom sharing our own sh*tty mom stories. Because everyone has a sh*tty mom story. We had too much snark, not enough funny, so we recruited Laurie Kilmartin, who’s a writer for Conan, and she added the funny.

OM: And you have another book, Today Moms?
MAZ: That was a straightforward, baby’s-first-year advice book. All the hosts from Today weighed in. It wasn’t in the same vein as Sh*tty Mom. We wanted to do Sh*tty Mom to make moms laugh. Everything is going to work out and don’t take yourself too seriously. Laugh at yourself.

OM: Have you had any criticism about the book?
MAZ: Only criticism is from people who haven’t read the book. Before you give your opinion, read it first. It’s a shocker to me because the reception is so great. Everyone has a sh*tty mom moment. It’s mostly, “Oh my goodness, I so get it.” 

OM: There’s definitely no shying away from anything.
MAZ: It’s kind of like if we’re going to go there, there’s no holding back with anything – language, topics, taboos.

OM: How about your kids?
MAZ: They are 8 and 6 years old. They go to a dual immersion Spanish-English school. We are really, really pleased with the program. They are awesome human beings. I had to warn the teachers this year. “Nice to meet you. I’m Mary Ann and if my daughters say sh*tty …”

Many college graduates complain that in this economy, even with a college degree, they just can’t find a job in their field. However, some students at Oklahoma’s top universities are working with the private sector even before they graduate, thanks to three innovative programs.

At Oklahoma State University, the New Product Development Center has 22 graduate and undergraduate students working directly with small manufacturers and inventors across the state.

At the University of Tulsa, the McDougall School of Petroleum Engineering has more than 40 students working on projects that involve some of the world’s top oil companies.

At the University of Oklahoma, the Center for the Creation of Economic Wealth has connected 150 students from a broad range of disciplines with inventors and private sector mentors.

The three programs have many significant differences, but they all have this in common: they are providing students hands-on, real-world experience in the private sector. Also, each program claims that by helping Oklahoma businesses develop new products, improve existing ones and take the products to market, they are boosting the state economy and creating new jobs.

At OSU: The NPDC

The New Product Development Center at OSU is in its 10th year. The student interns come from a wide range of academic disciplines, including engineering, business and agricultural communications. The NPDC’s focus is helping Oklahoma’s small manufacturers develop, improve and market their products.

NPDC Director Robert Taylor says, “We have a minimum of 30 projects running at all times. We end up with more work that we can possibly do.”

3C Cattle Feeders in Mill Creek had an idea for a better feeder. Ranchers experience a costly loss when feed falls on truck beds or is stolen by wild hogs and other animals. The central Oklahoma manufacturer turned to the NPDC, which obtained a federal grant to develop 3C’s idea. Since marketing the resulting product, the company reports that sales have increased by $500,000, and three new jobs have been created.

In 2008, the NPDC introduced the Inventor’s Assistance Service. The IAS mission is to “help Oklahoma inventors navigate the invention process from idea to the marketplace through education, information and referrals.”

Taylor points to Fence Solutions, Inc., of Enid. The company developed a new fence post clip, the Fence Fork T-Post, which the company says is “faster to put on and harder to knock off.” With help from the IAS, “his business is just growing like gangbusters now,” Taylor says.

At TU: Engineering Consortia

The McDougall School of Petroleum Engineering at TU is the home of nine petroleum-related consortia that give 40 to 50 students the opportunity to work directly with about 60 energy companies, including Exxon Mobil, BP, Shell and Conoco Phillips.

The TU program is quite a bit different from the OSU program. It is older, having been started in 1966, and it is limited strictly to petroleum engineering students. However, the common denominator is that both programs give students the chance to gain real-world experience in their chosen fields.

Department chair Mohan Kelkar explained that in each consortium, a group of companies cooperate to fund research on an industry problem they all would like to solve. Kelkar cites the challenge of transporting “heavy oil,” which is being studied by the High-Viscosity Oil Projects Consortium. Five oil companies each pay $100,000 annually to fund the research, which is carried out by several researchers and technicians and four student research assistants.

“If we can help the industry work in a cost effective manner, they can go into more difficult areas, and that results in hiring more people,” Kelkar says.

At OU: The CCEW

The newest program of the three is OU’s Center for the Creation of Economic Wealth. Founded in 2006, the center’s goal, according to its website, is to “create economic wealth for the university, state and nation by combining the talents of interns, inventors and private sector mentors.”

In the center’s first five years, 150 graduate and undergraduate interns have participated on 26 projects, which the center calls “commercial opportunities.”

Like OSU’s program, the CCEW draws students from many disciplines, including several sciences, business, fine arts, journalism and law. “Commercialization teams” composed of faculty, alumni mentors and student interns tackle real-world problems by providing technical research, market research, benchmarking, financial analysis, fundraising, strategic planning and business plan creation.

The center is overseen by Daniel Pullin, OU’s vice president for strategic planning and economic development. Pullin says CCEW teams “take Oklahoma innovation from the lab to the marketplace, often in the form of spin-out companies which generate knowledge-based jobs for the state.”

The teams have worked on everything from fiber optics to micro financing to water purification to a “baby board” for disabled infants. The center has facilitated the creation of three companies. The center’s Software Business Accelerator aids the creation and launch of software-based products and businesses.