Issue 98, Fall 2017
The Oxford American’s twenty-fifth anniversary continues with the magazine’s 98th issue, which includes the final installment in a series of excerpts from Jesmyn Ward’s new novel Sing, Unburied, Sing. Reflection on Southern history is a recurring theme in the issue. “It is an ongoing project,” editor Eliza Borné writes, “reckoning with our past, making the South a better place to live and dream and learn and work.”
Contributors include: David Ramsey, Danielle Chapman, Chris Offutt, Kaveh Akbar, Bob Hicok, Kevin A. González—and many more.
Editor’s Letter: Right in Time, by Eliza Borné
POINTS SOUTH
What Happens Next, by Paul Crenshaw
Soul Meeting, by Jonathan Bernstein
Another Country, by Osayi Endolyn
Needful Expression, by Michael Collins
The Kitler, a story by Amina Gautier
The Hunter, by Gabriel Daniel Solis
Removal, by Jeanie Riess
Lunchtime at Rancho Grande, by Diane Roberts
POETRY
American Persimmon, by Rose McLarney
Astrology, by Kaveh Akbar
The Return, by Bob Hicok
Luck, by Jenny Browne
Ghost Story, by Jacob Shores-Argüello
FEATURES
Honky-Tonk Man
We both loved Gary Stewart, and we both loved Grace
by David Ramsey
Jagged
A story by Jesmyn Ward
The Socialist Experiment
A new-society vision in Jackson, Mississippi
by Katie Gilbert
The Country Way
Sketches of Tennessee
by Danielle Chapman
Los Vampiri
A story by Kevin A. González
OMNIVORE
Becoming Integrated
Trying to achieve black selfhood in Little Rock
by Frederick McKindra
Old Woods and Deep
Traces of Cormac McCarthy’s Knoxville
by Noah Gallagher Shannon
Cooking with Chris:
The Country Sausage That's Going To Town
by Chris Offutt
Art by: Leo Touchet, Kohshin Finley, Derrick Adams, Aaron R. Turner, Shoshanna Weinberger, Lindsay Metivier, Toyin Ojih Odutola, Farrah Karapetian, Alexander Missen, Mauro C. Martinez, Mark Flood, Diego Camposeco, Heather Oelklaus, Rett Peek, Trip Burns, Marlo Pascual, Daniel Pagán, Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, Huger Foote, Kevin Horan
Cover: New Orleans jazz funeral, 1969. © 2017 Leo Touchet, leotouchet.com