Issue 125, Summer 2024

“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.