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“We selected stories that speak to the rituals used to witness and maintain an open channel between humanity and all beings in the natural world.”
—Danielle Amir Jackson, “Editor’s Letter: Blooms, Greens, and Portals”
For Summer 2024, Oxford American presents the Outside Issue, dedicated to the outdoors of our region and to the environmental experiences of our people. James Beard-winning writer Michael Adno reports on the mysterious practice of worm grunting in the Florida panhandle, C. J. Bartunek tells the story of one of Georgia’s first legal marijuana production facilities, and Tauheed Rahim II digs into family history and excavates a present-day battle with an agency seeking to acquire his family’s property in North Memphis. Other stories cover a fishing rodeo in deep South Louisiana and James Baldwin’s friendship with the Alabaman artist Fred Nall Hollis. The Outside Issue also includes a new polyptych of poems by Allison Pitinii Davis, a conversation between novelist Mesha Maren and photographer Julie Rae Powers, plus more writings and visual works that explore connections between land, people, and place.
Editor’s Letter: Blooms, Greens, and Portals
By Danielle Amir Jackson
Dear Queen
The land that saved you, Mama
By Tauheed Rahim II
Reign of the Silver King
By Christina Leo
Clearing Ground in Georgia’s New Cannabis Country
By C. J. Bartunek
Suffering Embarrassments in a Small Town
By DW McKinney
THE PERSISTENCE OF MEMORY
Searching for James Baldwin in Alabama
By Anna Venarchik
BRACKISH WATER
How the TVA deals with the living and the dead
By Austyn Gaffney
OUTSKIRTS
Poems by Allison Pitinii Davis
THE WORM CHARMERS
A Florida family coaxes earthworms from the forest floor
By Michael Adno
AN ARCHIVE OF ONE’S OWN
A conversation with photographer Julie Rae Powers
Q&A by Mesha Maren
WILD LUNCH
Edible botanicals, documented with an artist’s eye
Images by Jimmy Fike
ART BY: Melissa Alcena, Tom Anholt, Maud Madsen, Chie Gondo, Candace Caston, Joachim Koester, Alayna N. Pernell, Beauford Delaney, Steve Schapiro, Yves Coatsaliou, Morgan Hornsby, Jeannine Swallow, Chloe Chiasson, Julie Rae Powers, Jimmy Fike
COVER: Ellie, a photograph by Melissa Alcena © The artist. Courtesy TERN Gallery, Nassau, The Bahamas. Alcena’s book People of the Sun was published in May by KGP, and is included in their new ten-volume photobook box set LOST IV
