OklaFilm & OklaMusic
Friday, September 4, 2009

Soul of A People: Writing America’s Story

Soul of A People is a documentary about the creation of one of the most interesting and controversial public assistance programs, the Federal Writers Project. In America’s first self-portrait, premiering September 6 on the Smithsonian channel, the program will also highlight Anadarko native Jim Thompson.

During the Great Depression of the 1930s many Americans found themselves out of work and financially crippled. All eyes were on the newly elected President Franklin D. Roosevelt to pull the country out of recession. His controversial Federal Writers Project employed thousands of out of work writers to make state by state travel guides. The government instructed the authors “to hold up a mirror to America” and writers across the country submitted stories and interviews, forever defining the word “Americana.”

The film includes works and interviews with prominent writers of the era, such as Louis L’Amour, Studs Terkel, Stetson Kennedy, and Oklahoma’s own pulp-fiction writer Jim Thompson. Thompson is the acclaimed writer of the novel The Killer Inside Me, which iscurrently being made into a feature film directed by Michael Winterbottom and was filmed on location in Oklahoma.

For more information on the film, please visit www.smithsonianchannel.com