The Oxford American’s twenty-fifth anniversary continues with the magazine’s 97th issue, presenting a collection of powerful and surprising stories and images by more than thirty-five writers and artists. For the second year in a row, the magazine’s summer issue contains a themed “Southern Journeys” section, with essays and dispatches from across the region.
Contributors include: Jesmyn Ward, Jamie Quatro, Harrison Scott Key, Michael Parker, John O’Connor, and Roger D. Hodge. Plus: short stories from rising fiction writers Van Diamondfinger and Gothataone Moeng—and much more.
Editor’s Letter: Taking Off, by Eliza Borné
Concession, a story by Michael Parker
Documenting Blodgett Homes, by Sarah Stacke
Photographs by Johanne Rahaman
Local Fare: An Active Authenticity, by John T. Edge
If That Diamond Ring Don’t Shine
If That Mockingbird Don’t Sing
THE BEAUTIFUL HUNT
Unwalled at the end of the world
by Anne Gisleson
GEORGETOWN ONE STOP
Searching for no end of fish
by John O’Connor
A DISAPPEARING PILE OF SAND
Is it too late for the Outer Banks?
by Molly McArdle
SPEED AWAY
This, too, is holy
by Jamie Quatro
SET FORTH
Thumbing with the founder of the Great Hitchhiking Race
by Joel Finsel
COWBOYS AND INDIANS
An errant boyhood in the Texas borderlands
by Roger D. Hodge
BOTALAOTE HILL
a story by Gothataone Moeng
AFTER ORANGES
Following John McPhee to Florida
by Wyatt Williams
Cooking with Chris:
MAGIC BANANA
by Chris Offutt
Cover: “Cutlass with iPod” (2012), by Cheryl Kelley, cherylkelley.com