Frontier Reporting

Maya Rao lived on the oil fields of North Dakota for a year, writing about America's modern day gold rush. She worked behind a cash register at a truck stop, meeting 'outsiders, outcasts and hustlers'. In this interview, Maya talks about the transient life of fortune-seeking men, their sense of adventure and risk-taking behaviour. Alongside the oil wells, she also found a culture of toxic masculinity bubbling to the surface. This episode is based Maya Rao's piece, Outsiders, Outcasts, Hustlers: A Year Reporting on the Modern-Day Frontier. Her book "Great American Outpost: Dreamers, Mavericks, and the Making of an Oil Frontier" was published in April 2018.