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2017: THE YEAR IN STORIES

We celebrated our twenty-fifth anniversary year by doing what we’ve always done: publish the groundbreaking fiction—three excerpts from Jesmyn Ward’s National Book Award–winning novel, Sing,...

By Oxford American

SUSTAINING CHANGE FOR ALL

An installment in our weekly series, The By and By. I am grateful to the feminists who came before me and who made it possible for me to be where I am today. But mostly, I am tremendously...

By Sandra Gutierrez

OUR QUEEN OF HEAVEN

An installment in our weekly story series, The By and By. From the Janiculum, you can see the dull red cells that look like arcades, the two squat watchtowers, and the closest buildings laid...

By Matthew Neill Null

Issue 99, Winter 2017

NRBQ, STEVE FERGUSON, AND THE PURSUIT OF THE IMPOSSIBLE GUITAR LICK

A Kentucky Music Issue web-exclusive liner note. For some twenty-five years I’ve maintained an obsession with four specific seconds in all the history of rock & roll. Four...

By Kirby Gann

THE LISTENER AND THE SONG

An installment in our weekly series, The By and By. Music enters us unmediated by the intellect. Every other form of art goes through the brain on its way to your heart, your gut, your soul. We...

By Ronni Lundy

I AM HALF COSTA RICAN AND HALF NOT

Although the journey of this book is more fraught than a cloud forest, it is more magical, too. The games we play become the way the poems tell their stories, the way they love and grieve. These...

By Ruben Quesada

Web Feature

SIGNS, SERPENTS, SALVATION

An installment in our weekly series, The By and By. Stories of sin and salvation are plentiful in serpent handling communities, and over the years, I’ve heard dozens of tales of Signs Followers...

By Lauren Pond

THE HOBBYIST

An installment in our weekly series, The By and By. My greatest, greatest fear: to be a hobbyist, an artist on the side. I’ve prided myself on being a working artist for my entire adult life,...

By Tift Merritt

THE BADDEST HILLBILLY IN HOLLYWOOD

A Kentucky Music Issue web-exclusive liner note. Jim Ford’s lone album is a twenty-eight minute, mystical celebration of the kid that got away—a hazy,...

By Jesse Donaldson

Issue 99, Winter 2017

“I’M NO STRANGER TO THE RAIN” BY KEITH WHITLEY

A Kentucky Music Issue web-exclusive liner note. Raised in Sandy Hook, Kentucky, Whitley grew up admiring country greats Lefty Frizzell and George Jones, whose vocal styles he imitated as...

By Alex Taylor

TO BEGIN WHERE ONE LEFT OFF, AND THEN BEGIN AGAIN

An installment in our weekly series, The By and By. Important conversations are taking place around the Southern table—frank discussions on culinary appropriation and whether anyone can truly...

By Sandra Gutierrez

SOUND THAT KILLS PAIN

An installment in our weekly series, The By and By. The problem of pain is one that has long troubled humans in general, but dentists, perhaps, in particular. The issue has vexed the field for...

By Will Stephenson

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