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THE WORK OF BUILDING AN ALTOGETHER NEW WORLD

Oxford American writers have long chronicled police brutality, racial injustice, and inequality. They have also centered Black excellence and joy. This week, we share a few masterworks that feel...

By Oxford American

A LOST GENERATION MOVES FORWARD

A photo essay supplement to our spring issue In spite of this palpable, omnipresent sense of loss, or perhaps precisely because of it, the Juancun community in Atlanta has devoted themselves to...

By Bess Adler

IN PRAISE OF CAKE

Food for thought from the Oxford American When the pandemic upended our work and personal lives at the  Oxford American, we were in various stages of launching a number of new digital...

By Eliza Borné

FLASH OF INSPIRATION: “WE, MOONS” AND MY STORY COLLECTION

When the Oxford American had to postpone Leesa Cross-Smith’s appearance at our South Words reading series, we asked her to write about her new story collection, So We Can Glow, and record...

By Leesa Cross-Smith

THE PRETTIEST STAR

An excerpt from Carter Sickels’s new novel The Prettiest Star . The killer whales are the most misunderstood of the whales. To begin with, although everyone calls them whales, they’re actually...

By Carter Sickels

HEALING, SLOWLY, IN COOKEVILLE

When tornado relief efforts intersect with a global pandemic In my family, the women of generations past—and sometimes present—often found themselves without choices or options, hemmed into lives...

By Monic Ductan

THE JELL-O RULE

In Memory of Charles Portis The “Words of Remembrance and Appreciation” delivered by Ernie Dumas, Portis’s longtime friend and colleague from the Arkansas Gazette, was, like the man it honored, by...

By Ernie Dumas

THE MAN WITH THE KEYS

Writers reflect on Charles Portis He was the real thing, but he was modest about it. An awestruck fan meeting him by chance in a Little Rock bar named the Faded Rose gushed at him, praising him as a...

By Oxford American

Web Feature

Remembering Charles Portis

Revisiting the life and work of Charles Portis

By Oxford American

A LITERACY BEYOND BOOKS

A Conversation with Nickole Brown  “And now? I’m still doing what I’ve always done—the only thing I know how to do—to use poetry to find words for those who have little voice of their own, to...

By Jen Sammons

THE OXFORD AMERICAN WELCOMES TWO NEW STAFF MEMBERS

The Oxford American Literary Project is thrilled to welcome two new key staff members: managing editor Danielle A. Jackson and development director Adrienne Anderson.

By Oxford American

TRAVELING NOT FOR TRAVELING’S SAKE

An installment in our weekly series, The By and By.  Though we already had two hundred miles under our belts, that morning felt like the first real leg, the leg with daylight and sights, with...

By Katy Simpson Smith