Oxford American
banner
oxfordamerican.bsky.social
Oxford American
@oxfordamerican.bsky.social
The Oxford American is a national magazine dedicated to featuring the very best in Southern writing while documenting the complexity and vitality of the South.

https://linktr.ee/oxfordamerican
Pinned
Introducing the Austin Music Issue featuring @willienelsonmusic.bsky.social ! The 27th annual Southern Music Issue takes readers straight into the heart of Austin’s legendary live music scene. Pre-order your print edition + optional limited-edition vinyl LP now: https://rb.gy/m1p6y4
#EyesontheSouth | Ark-La-Tex | Cody Cobb

From the archive, photographer Cody Cobb captures scenes he “discovered while exploring dirt roads, abandonments, swamps, and pine forests of northwest Louisiana, east Texas, and south Arkansas.”

🔗: https://shorturl.at/X53Ib
November 23, 2025 at 4:00 PM
The Austin LIVE! Music Issue is shipping out now! We’re excited for you all to experience this special issue, limited-edition LP, and merch collection. Get yours today for delivery straight to your door.

🔗: https://shorturl.at/6v16P
November 20, 2025 at 4:00 PM
“No single disc’s worth of songs can claim to capture the many inflections of the Texas sound.”

—From the archive, Rick Clark compiles a list of 25 tracks containing notes of the American experience and the Texas borderlands.

🔗: https://shorturl.at/e4UPf
November 19, 2025 at 10:30 PM
“I treated each person with an equal measure of respect and dignity, a photographic utopia.”

—Arkansas-based photographer Andrew Kilgore is profiled by @jbesonen.bsky.social as he shares the backstories behind 1970s photographs of Fayetteville and the Ozarks.

🔗: https://shorturl.at/Vhbqj
November 18, 2025 at 11:00 PM
“I cannot help but wonder what stories are not written today—not for a lack of a willing author, but due to an imperiled free press.”

—Lauren Stroh details “The Angolite,” the prison news magazine produced within Louisiana’s State Penitentiary.

🔗: https://shorturl.at/QqC9U
November 17, 2025 at 11:00 PM
#EyesontheSouth | Florida Boys | Josh Aronson

In his five-year photographic project, Florida-based artist Aronson “broadens what boyhood can look like: gentle, vulnerable, and rooted in place.”

🔗: https://shorturl.at/Bhmpl
November 15, 2025 at 4:00 PM
Reposted by Oxford American
In this week’s Top 5:

Bear bones (Southlands)
Outstanding Outkast (@oxfordamerican.bsky.social)
Brightline’s brutality (@miamiherald.com)
Lasting lunches (@bittersouth.bsky.social)
Ruin ruminations (@thebaffler.com)

Become a Longreads member and read the Top 5 here:

longreads.com/2025/11/14/t...
The Top 5 Longreads of the Week - Longreads
This week we are celebrating stories from Anya Groner; Kiese Laymon; Brittany Wallman, Aaron Leibowitz, Shradha Dinesh, Susan Merriam, Daniel Rivero, and Joshua Ceballos; Jennifer Justus; and Robert…
longreads.com
November 14, 2025 at 4:39 PM
“The failure of passenger trains was never caused by a lack of demand.”

—Holly Devon takes a trip along @amtrak.com’s new Mardi Gras Service line, detailing the history of the Gulf Coast passenger rail and the riders climbing aboard today.

🔗: shorturl.at/xa2bt
All Aboard the Mardi Gras Line
shorturl.at
November 13, 2025 at 9:21 PM
Reposted by Oxford American
"Framed this way, the line between 'native' and 'invasive'—whether plant, animal, or human—becomes less about origin and more about behavior: do you exploit, or do you commune?"

Alexandra Martinez for @oxfordamerican.bsky.social: oxfordamerican.org/oa-now/subve...
Subversive Botanicals in Miami’s Art Underground
oxfordamerican.org
November 13, 2025 at 5:23 PM
The Oxford American is excited to announce two consecutive FREE events celebrating the launch of the Austin Live! Music Issue + LP.
November 12, 2025 at 8:48 PM
“It would have been easy enough to beg off, but that wasn’t in the rancher’s nature.”

—From the archive, Bret Anthony Johnston draws from Waylon Jennings’s 1977 classic “Luckenbach, Texas,” featuring Willie Nelson, in his story “The Basics of Love.”

🔗: https://shorturl.at/g0LrJ
November 11, 2025 at 12:00 AM
“Mess with Willie Nelson and the next thing you’ll see is the wrong end of a gun held by the Devil himself, Robert Paul English.”

—From the archive, Joe Nick Patoski dives into the rich friendship between Willie Nelson and his drummer, the late Paul English.

🔗: https://shorturl.at/so1vl
November 9, 2025 at 6:00 PM
“Not only are immigration processes complex, but, under the Trump administration, the rules keep changing.”

—In part four of his ICE in Key West Series, Zack Ford speaks to the mounting anxieties shared in a city impacted by ICE detainments without due process.

🔗: https://shorturl.at/SSQyN
November 7, 2025 at 11:00 PM
#EyesontheSouth | Ozark Giraffes | Chuck Davis

In this feature, Davis reclaims Ozark vernacular architecture through photography that embodies the “resilience of the Ozark people.” The show opens today at Mount Sequoyah in Fayetteville, Arkansas.

🔗: https://shorturl.at/RDPH0
November 7, 2025 at 3:00 PM
“I’m going to tell Grandmama that her belief is the only reason I’m still alive.”

—From the archive, Kiese Laymon traces Black Southern life, love, and labor through familial ties and OutKast artists Big Boi and André 3000.

🔗: https://shorturl.at/rOiZr
November 4, 2025 at 11:00 PM
Happy Halloween from the Oxford American. This year, we’re sharing five tales to get you in the spirit. Head to the https://OxfordAmerican.org to read these stories . . . if you dare.
October 31, 2025 at 10:40 PM
#EyesontheSouth | Halloween Queens of Club Riviera | Janice Engsberg

This new feature surfaces portraits taken at a 1971 Halloween Drag Ball in Newport, Kentucky. These images are now preserved at the @faulknermorgan.bsky.social.

🔗: https://shorturl.at/ErMxG
October 30, 2025 at 10:00 PM
“The ethic prizes engagement over polish: compost, rearrange, let the work keep working.”

—Alexandra Martinez profiles Ọmọlará Williams McCallister and Janae Hernandez as they make art from non-native plants that speaks to gentrification and migration.

🔗: shorturl.at/jp9sP
October 30, 2025 at 6:00 PM
Get a glimpse into the Austin Music Issue with the Oxford American’s Editor-in-Chief Sara A. Lewis. You can pre-order your copy of the Austin Music Issue at oxfordamericangoods.org 🎶🪩
October 28, 2025 at 7:00 PM
“She imagined Michael reading this letter on his cot in Vietnam, under a sweltering tent full of other men reading letters.”

—Mary Miller tells a story of a girl who discovers a series of letters between her uncle, who died in Vietnam, and his lover.

🔗: https://shorturl.at/E3UPQ
October 26, 2025 at 3:00 PM
#EyesontheSouth | Democratic Spaces | Kate Medley

In this collection from the archive, documentary photographer @katemedley.bsky.social explores Southern common spaces in her project “Somewhere Else.”

🔗: https://shorturl.at/AOayL
October 24, 2025 at 10:00 PM
“She was taking back her power.”

—In a feature article from @burnaway.org Shanley Poole profiles artist Carrie Hart, spotlighting the collaborative, conversational creation of her zines that revolve around making others feel seen.

🔗: https://shorturl.at/eGCvv
October 23, 2025 at 3:00 PM
Introducing the Austin Music Issue featuring @willienelsonmusic.bsky.social ! The 27th annual Southern Music Issue takes readers straight into the heart of Austin’s legendary live music scene. Pre-order your print edition + optional limited-edition vinyl LP now: https://rb.gy/m1p6y4
October 22, 2025 at 6:30 PM
The Oxford American is now accepting pitches for our upcoming Spring 2026 Food Issue. We’re looking for stories that explore how food preserves a legacy, crosses borders, and creates connection. Learn more and submit your work by November 15 at oxfordamerican.org/submissions.
October 21, 2025 at 6:30 PM