A feature essay from the Spring 2020 issue. I moved to Texas in 2017 and returned often to Dilley. When I would chat with residents—after a city council meeting, at the nail salon, before a cook-off—they’d ask if I was… by Emily Gogolak | Mar, 2020

An Intersection at the End…

A short story from the Spring 2020 issue I tell him goodbye and go wander around the beauty section in Dillard’s. I find the perfume like what I’m wearing on display and I spray some more on. I find a… by Ashleigh Bryant Phillips | Feb, 2020

The Virgin

A feature essay from the Spring 2020 issue. History is, in part, the memories we choose to protect and reinforce, to ensure their longevity and influence. In Thibodaux’s protected memory, sugarcane has endured, plantations have endured, Confederate heroes have endured—but… by Rosemary Westwood | Mar, 2020

Persons Unknown

A Points South essay from the Spring 2020 issue When we weren’t whizzing through intersections, I was trying to read road signs, thinking that their letters, dimly lit by our headlights, would give me some kind of orientation on this… by Malinda Maynor Lowery | Mar, 2020

Career Girl Meets Rock Star

Little Richard, now eighty-two years old, has reportedly been living the last several years in a penthouse suite at the Hilton hotel in downtown Nashville (the Hilton will neither confirm nor deny that they have a guest named Mr. Penniman). I… by David Ramsey | Dec, 2015

Prayers for Richard

A featured short story from the Spring 2020 issue. She stopped short. The dogs would have passed without noticing her, but Seth had to give them a parting yap. In a second they wheeled around and came straight at her,… by Ben Fountain | Mar, 2020

Cane Creek

 A Letter from the Editor, Spring 2020. Over the years, I have come to admire a certain kind of story that the Oxford American, as a quarterly magazine untethered from the demands of a rapid news cycle, is especially well… by Eliza Borné | Mar, 2020

The Messy Middle

We would like to hear from you.  The magazine will begin publishing letters to the editor in the fall issue and going forward. If you would like to respond to a story published in the magazine, we welcome your letter. by Oxford American | Jun, 2019

Write to the Oxford American

Listen and Subscribe Today
“Chrysler Bldg Johannesburg 1953” by Byron Bird. 3D image by Rob Ketcherside
The By and By

The Gymnast

April 19, 2018

An installment in our weekly series, The By and By. 

Across two lanes of traffic—an alarmingly short distance—he executed a round-off, back handspring, and back flip. He was so high in the air I could see him over four rows of cars in front of me. The heat shimmered up off the pavement and broken glass around him. He fetched a cup from the curb, and I watched him pass every car window, including my own, without collecting anything. The light turned green.

Ponte City, Johannesburg, South Africa. Photo by David East on Unsplash
The By and By

Flat with a View

March 01, 2018

An installment in our weekly series, The By and By. 

Up above, the electric Vodacom sign flashed through its paces of red and white, red and white, tingeing everything with pink light and unnatural shadows. It was strange to be in a place that looked so dystopian but that smelled like something as domestic as kitchen trash.

Experience the Discovery Park of America
Ending Hunger & Poverty While Caring for the Earth | Heifer International
Join the Oxford American Society