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THE QUESTION OF COMMUNITY: D&D’S BARBEQUE

A video supplement to “Folk Witness” by John T. Edge, published in the Fall 2018 issue. “Joints and shacks offer witness to the environments where design and operation incongruities . . . often...

SUGAR RUN

An excerpt from Mesha Maren's new novel Sugar Run . The woman leans forward, elbows on the table and black hair slicked back under a cap. She’s been there for three days, winning more than half...

By Mesha Maren

IT’S LATER THAN YOU THINK

An installment in our weekly series, The By and By. The Jim Ridley line that I wrote about in a previous column, his beautiful notion that “you can find your voice by loving things”—that’s...

By William Boyle

ALL THE REQUISITE BILLIES

This story was originally published on OxfordAmerican.org in 2012. In underground music circles, Dex is a legend. During the late ’80s and ’90s he fronted North Carolina’s fabled Flat Duo Jets....

By Aaron Gilbreath

TRY AND TRY AND TRY

An installment in our weekly series, The By and By. All of the beautiful songs, the incandescent lyrics—poor translations of what we really want to say when we cry or lift our hands or close...

By Leesa Cross-Smith

RUST AND DREAMS

An installment in our weekly series, The By and By. Winding through these towns, behind buildings and homes, across fields—I am struck by the train’s intimate perspective. The very idea that I was...

By Karen Healy

BECAUSE I DON’T GIVE UP

An installment in our weekly series, The By and By. Willie grew up right here, on the Westside, el Hueso. The bone of San Antonio. We call it the barrio. Lately, people have been getting these...

By Bárbara Renaud González

TRAVEL PLANS

An installment in our weekly series, The By and By. Twice during my visit, I listened to friends say over meals how much they genuinely loved the city. Both times, I immediately thought, Why?...

By Frederick McKindra

LONGER THAN THE SONG OF A WHIP-POOR-WILL

An essay supplement to our North Carolina Music Issue. It’s easy to become bored with common things—a four-lane highway, or a daily schedule at the nursing home, or a type of bird or music. But maybe...

By Michael Graff

Web Feature

A FAMILIAR STRANGER

An installment in our weekly series, The By and By. Her mother was characterized by her resilience but also her harshness; she had lived in a holler nestled in the East Tennessee mountains,...

By Julien Baker

Web Feature

UNDER CERTAIN CIRCUMSTANCES

An installment in our weekly series, The By and By. I couldn’t tell if my total transparency meant I was improving or that I was becoming completely unmoored, with no understanding of my words’...

By Meghan Tear Plummer

WANDERING/WONDERING

An installment in our weekly series, The By and By. As I listened, going first through What Would the Community Think again and then switching to Moon Pix, I felt the loneliness leave me. I...