Celebrate 30 years of the OA.

With original work from Imani Perry, Kristen Arnett, Diane Roberts, and so many others, our Spring Issue honors our past and looks into our expansive future.

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Magazine


Issue 102, Fall 2018

What history gets saved, and why, and by whom? These questions drive several pieces in the Fall 2018 issue, which features cover art by Kerry James Marshall.

Plus: Tom Piazza rides shotgun with John Prine in his 1977 Coupe de Ville. Beth Macy, author of Dopesick, profiles Robert Gipe and his change-making art in Appalachia. And Nick Tabor examines Orthodox Christianity in the South through the life story of a controversial monk. 







Editor’s Letter: Past Imperfect, by Eliza Borné

Points South

Will Bostwick digs a gospel music archive

Stay Away from Places with Directions in Their Names, a story by David Wesley Williams

Kelsey Norris on a Nashville descendants project

Tokyo to Davao City, by Helene Achanzar

Nell Boeschenstein reports from a disappearing lake

Culture Shock, by Scott Korb

Megan Mayhew Bergman and the ravens of Paris

Local Fare: Folk Witness, by John T. Edge 


Poetry

Seek & Destroy, by Alex Lemon

Returning to a Moment, by Curtis Bauer

Bikers, by Kate Daniels

Elements of Accounting, by Sandy Longhorn


Features

LIVING IN THE PRESENT WITH JOHN PRINE
Old car, new shoes

by Tom Piazza

MANY SINGLETONS
War, ownership, and family ties in Tennessee
by
Danielle Chapman

THE MOUNTAINS AREN’T EMPTY
Robert Gipe at capacitys ragged edge
by
Beth Macy

THE LIGHT OF SALVATION 
Father Damian Hart and the pull of the Orthodox Church
by Nick Tabor

POSTHUMOUS PORTRAIT
a story by Lee Conell


Omnivore

LIGHT THE WORLD
Anne Spencers ecosystem of art and activism
by Tess Taylor 

SAFE HOUSES
Sarah Winchester and the legacy of living with guns
by Sara A. Lewis

Cooking with Chris: 
LARD HAVE MERCY

by Chris Offutt 


Art by Kerry James Marshall, L. Kasimu Harris, Vaughn Sills, Suzy Schultz, David Rathman, Wardell Milan, Emily Shur, Lars Elling, Walker Pickering, Catherine McCarthy, Gina Beavers, David McClister, Titus Kaphar, Ralph Eugene Meatyard, Chris Jones, Ben Schonzeit, Deborah Bay, Yana Dimitrova 

 

Cover: Untitled (2009) © Kerry James Marshall. Courtesy of the artist and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York