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Magazine
Issue 126, Fall 2024
Our Fall 2024 edition celebrates the gritty, absurd, and deeply human experiences that define the South and the stories we tell about it. With a lineup of short fiction, poems, and essays from both new and established writers, the latest entry in our ongoing Southern Lit series seeks to explore and expand the boundaries of narrative-making in our region.
Issue 126 features an intimate account of a fateful meeting with the late fiction writer and poet Ellen Gilchrist by James McWilliams; debut fiction from Kevin Wranovix and Josie Tolin; a conversation about visual storytelling between OA Art Editor Alyssa Ortega Coppelman and Texas painter RF. Alvarez; a ghost story by National Book Award winner Justin Phillip Reed; plus more work that tackles loneliness and legacy, lost innocence and chance encounters.
POINTS SOUTH
Writing about Paintings
A poem by Derrick Austin
Cracker
A story by Rebekah Morgan
A Walk with Ancestors
Inside a pre-integration, Black Belt, Black-owned bookstore
By Adria R. Walker
The Frogs
A story by Kaylie Saidin
new novel
A ghost story by Justin Phillip Reed
FEATURES
THE FLIRT
A story by Rebecca Bernard
A RECIPE PASSED DOWN
Debut Fiction by Kevin Wranovix
POEMS
By Aimee Nezhukumatathil
FREEZER SONGS
Debut Fiction by Josie Tolin
OMNIVORE
Ellen Gilchrist’s Real Man
A visit with the iconoclastic author
By James McWilliams
Cool Nights and Intimate Cowboys
A conversation with Texas artist RF. Alvarez
By Alyssa Ortega Coppelman
ART BY: Thomas Deaton, Louis Carlos Bernal, Awol Erizku, Keisha Scarville, Jerrell Gibbs, Jamie Earnest, Timothy Ivy, Charles C. Mosely, Jr, Shelley Justiss, Coady Brown, Nicholas Galanin, Erica Vincenzi, Jo Ann Chaus, Terra Keck, Tim Sandow, Jess Allen, Ginny Crouch Stanford, RF. Alvarez
COVER: Scene from Alligator (1980) (detail), 2019, acrylic and mixed media on canvas by Thomas Deaton © The artist. Courtesy Lemieux Galleries, New Orleans. Deaton’s work will be on view from November 2 to February 2, in the exhibition Prospect.6: The Future is Present, The Harbinger is Home, in New Orleans.