@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.
@oxfordamerican.bsky.social#EyesontheSouth | Of the Land and People | Kurney Ramsey
In this feature from the archive, Ramsey explores the idea of tradition and homecoming through his series, “Returning.”
@oxfordamerican.bsky.social“You had somethin to run towards.”
In this short story, Herbert Girtley Jr. captures a night of reconciliation between two old friends who revisit the cradle of their shared girlhood and break free from the tethers of their hometown.
@oxfordamerican.bsky.social“That was life for you: you try to make something work and the minute you need it, it falls apart.”
In this story by Destiny O. Birdsong, a woman raising her boyfriend’s young son forms the family they both need.
@oxfordamerican.bsky.social“I received an email from a colleague one day who asked me to take down the sign outside my office door reading STOP CENSORSHIP.”
In this essay, Lucy Schiller balances fear, courage, and surveillance as a professor in a conservative Texas town.
@oxfordamerican.bsky.social“And yet the work persists—vivid, insistent, thrilling.”
Jeremy Lybarger traces the life and rediscovery of queer Southern painter Robert Gordy, whose whimsical style earned acclaim and then obscurity.
🔗: https://shorturl.at/nRyV9
@oxfordamerican.bsky.social"She’s our lost daughter, going into the wilderness. Where did she go?”
Andrea Cooper documents the turbulent journey of the 1859 "Virginia Dare" sculpture and how Dare herself was embraced as a symbol across movements.
@oxfordamerican.bsky.social“and their voices gather / like charms in a church / where the heavy antagonisms of ugly have no seat”
In her new poem, Camonghne Felix relishes in the comfort of Black hair salons that can serve as sanctuaries against prejudice.
@oxfordamerican.bsky.socialHappy #LitMagWeek! In celebration, we’re offering a new, limited-edition t-shirt that includes a free matching tote! We’re also offering 15% off almost everything on OxfordAmericanGoods.org with the code LITMAGWEEK, now through Oct. 2. Shop now: shorturl.at/WG59U
@oxfordamerican.bsky.socialAs the Oxford American grows, we are establishing two leadership positions: an Executive Director to lead the organization and an Editor to lead the magazine.
We are hiring for both.
Learn more and apply: oxfordamerican.org/jobs
@oxfordamerican.bsky.socialKiki Petrosino shares an excerpt from her latest collection “Perfect Italian” which weaves personal memories with ancestral echoes, reflecting on themes of family, grief, and the search for connection across generations and geographies.
@oxfordamerican.bsky.socialIn "Something Like Home," gender theorist Kelsey L. Smoot considers the context of home through the lens of mess, and how access to enclosure changes what excess is allowed.
@oxfordamerican.bsky.socialGeorgia poet Mason Wray considers how people live on in the objects they leave behind. As he clears out his grandmother’s house, Wray reflects on the meaning of ownership, our attachments to material things, and the possibility of being forgotten.
@oxfordamerican.bsky.socialIn this new poem by Courtney Conrad that appears in our Summer/Fall 2026 Home Issue, a Jamaican grandmother watches as her young granddaughter packs keepsakes to take with her on her move to the United Kingdom.
@oxfordamerican.bsky.social"So my father's suicide became a chasm."
From the archive, Jeremy Redmon dissects his trauma surrounding his veteran father’s suicide and reflects on his time as a journalist during the Iraq war.
@oxfordamerican.bsky.socialIn this new poem by Katie Condon, a college professor watches pro-life protests unfold on campus and is drawn into questions about God and the voices behind the movement.
@oxfordamerican.bsky.social“She was convinced Eddie was magnetic and her cells were tiny pieces of metal.”
—In a new short story by Katherine Webb, a young girl in rural Appalachia is in love with her soon-to-be uncle and grapples with her feelings on his wedding day.
@oxfordamerican.bsky.social“Nobody gave a rat’s ass about suicide when we got home from Iraq. ”
In a new work of flash fiction by Eric McMillan, a soldier contends with an epidemic of military suicides.
🔗: https://shorturl.at/GfWoR
@oxfordamerican.bsky.social“This isn’t home—that I know. But someday, I’ll find it again.”
The final essay in the Home Makers series, Jaquira Diaz explores the liminal space between house and home.
🔗: https://shorturl.at/AqqPP
@oxfordamerican.bsky.socialPoet, essayist, and novelist Wendell Berry died yesterday at 92 at his home in Port Royal, Kentucky. In his memory, we're sharing "Sabbaths," originally published in our Spring 2018 Issue, a poem that, like so much of his work, asked us to slow down and pay attention.
@oxfordamerican.bsky.social“My house is haunted.”
From the Summer/Fall 2026 Home issue, @dkroberts.bsky.social reflects on loss and memory in her family's Florida house, which she refuses to ever leave.
🔗: https://shorturl.at/afKNn
