Brandy McDonnell is an award-winning journalist, a lifelong Oklahoman, and a features writer for The Oklahoman and Oklahoman.com. She is a winner of a 2025 Rabkin Prize. You can read her full bio here. 

We invited Brandy to have a conversation about her work. The interview is accompanied by a newly commissioned portrait of Brandy in her home office in Lindsay, near where she grew up. 

The interview has been gently edited for length and clarity. 

Mentioned in this episode:

• The Lindsay News, Lindsay, Okla.

• Allied Arts

• Ghibli Park in Aichi, Japan

• Howl’s Moving Castleby Hayao Miyazaki (2004)

• “Spreading the feminist spirit of Hayao Miyazaki as ‘Spirited Away’ debuts on Blu-ray” by Brandy McDonnell (AWFJ Network Blog, 2015)

• My Neighbour Totoro by Hayao Miyazaki (1988)

• Ghibli Museum in Tokyo, Japan 

• “OKC museum celebrating 80th anniversary with art by Rembrandt, Chihuly and Ansel Adams” by Brandy McDonnell (The Oklahoman, February 2025)

• Toy and Action Figure Museum, Pauls Valley, Okla.

• Artist Kevin Stark 

• Squeaky Burger music

• Lyric Theatre of Oklahoma

• Jubilee City: A Memoir at Full Speedby Joe Andoe (Harper Perennial, 2008)

• Don’t Never Be Afraid of Your Horses by Mike Larsen (Oklahoma Hall of Fame Publishing, 2017)

This episode of the Rabkin Interviews was produced by the Dorothea and Leo Rabkin Foundation, an artist-endowed foundation based in Portland, Maine. The interview was conducted by Mary Louise Schumacher, a journalist and the executive director of the Rabkin Foundation. The portraits were made by artist-photographer Kevin J. Miyazaki. The production team for the Rabkin Interviews also includes Cindy Eggert Johnson, producer; Johnathon Olsen, editor; with research and copyediting by Katie Avila Loughmiller and Karen Samelson. Music is by Flint, HaHaHa, and Out of Flux. The Rabkin Prize is awarded through a nomination process, and an independent jury selects the winners.