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This Spring, the OA will focus on food.

Through fresh reporting, in-depth profiles, and daring personal essays, this issue will explore what we eat: people, industries, and tastes that both build and challenge our ideas of Southern food.

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Frederick McKindra

About

Frederick McKindra, fiction writer and essayist, lives in Little Rock. His essay “Becoming Integrated” from the Fall 2017 issue of the Oxford American was listed as a Notable Essay in Best American Essays 2018, edited by Hilton Als. He has also contributed to the OA’s online series The By and By. A 2017 BuzzFeed Emerging Writer Fellow, McKindra has received support from the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference and the Lambda Literary Foundation.

Articles

Issue 98, Fall 2017

Becoming Integrated

Their pain became my own, a container for all the angst I felt living in their wake.

By Frederick McKindra
Issue 109/110, Summer/Fall 2020

Seeds Unbound

By Frederick McKindra
Issue 114, Fall 2021

Finding a Home Behind the Counter

I began work unsure if the store would ever become my community.

By Frederick McKindra

MY LOCAL GAY BAR

An installment in our weekly series, The By and By.  Going to a gay bar was an expedient, in that presumably most patrons would be available. I hoped that meeting someone would be easier there....

By Frederick McKindra

PROPERTY HUNTING

An installment in our weekly series, The By and By.  Writing is lonely work—because of the solitude, but also because it does not quiet the mind the way physical toil does. Instead, as I exert...

By Frederick McKindra

RUNNING MAKES THE LANDSCAPE STRANGE

An installment in our weekly series, The By and By.  I was consciously conquering trials from my personal history, reforming established truths I’d carried for years about my body’s...

By Frederick McKindra

THE SOUTH END

An installment in our weekly series, The By and By.  I’ve long struggled with my feelings toward the South End, having never loved the place the way I thought I should. Both my parents...

By Frederick McKindra

TOO LARGE A THING TO CONTAIN

An installment in our weekly series, The By and By.  Newly returned to Little Rock, this year I will attempt to catch the Southern vernacular on the air—the sounds that warp my senses and have...

By Frederick McKindra

TRAVEL PLANS

An installment in our weekly series, The By and By.  Twice during my visit, I listened to friends say over meals how much they genuinely loved the city. Both times, I immediately thought, Why?...

By Frederick McKindra