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Magazine
Issue 97, Summer 2017
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
POINTS SOUTH
The Hellhound of Boligee, by Harrison Scott Key
Concession, a story by Michael Parker
The Soft Things, by Holly Haworth
Documenting Blodgett Homes, by Sarah Stacke
Photographs by Johanne Rahaman
The Domestic Front, a story by Van Diamondfinger
Local Fare: An Active Authenticity, by John T. Edge
POETRY
Four Poems
by Traci Brimhall
If That Diamond Ring Don’t Shine
If That Mockingbird Don’t Sing
SOUTHERN JOURNEYS
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
FEATURES
Cut
A story by Jesmyn Ward
Cowboys and Indians
An errant boyhood in the Texas borderlands
by Roger D. Hodge
Botalaote Hill
A story by Gothataone Moeng
OMNIVORE
After Oranges
Following John McPhee to Florida
by Wyatt Williams
Cooking with Chris:
Magic Banana
by Chris Offutt
Art by: Cheryl Kelley, Milli Apelgren, Robbie McClaran, Tatum Shaw, Tori Tinsley, Ysabel LeMay, Allison V. Smith, Sally Gall, Johanne Rahaman, David Trautrimas, Mary Parisi, Melissa Bonin, Kristen M. Williams, David Andrews, Maude Clay, Larry Fink, Roger D. Hodge, Meleko Mokgosi, Alex Catt, Lucas Blalock
Cover: “Cutlass with iPod” (2012), by Cheryl Kelley, cherylkelley.com