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.
Magazine
Issue 105, Summer 2019
In our annual Southern Journeys section, four long-form stories take readers across the region in search of bygone utopias, neglected histories, and obscure visionaries—alongside short essays on music and the road from beloved OA contributors Kiese Laymon, Ronni Lundy, Mary Miller, and more.
The Summer 2019 issue also includes new fiction by True Detective screenwriter Graham Gordy, an essay by Stephanie Powell Watts, and poetry by Rajiv Mohabir and Sandra Beasley.
Plus: Anne Gisleson and John T. Edge on their favorite watering holes.
Editor’s Letter: Color Fields, by Eliza Borné
Points South
Boyce Upholt paddles the Mississippi
The Fleeting Kingdom of Heaven, by Margaret Renkl
Jacob Rosenberg finds Spaceman
Stephanie Powell Watts imagines Thomas Wolfe
Local Fare: Social Engineering, by John T. Edge
Poetry
from Ghosts of India Road in Opelika, Ross Cemetery, by Rajiv Mohabir
Southern Journeys
RUSKIN USA
Forgotten utopias in the country of no castles
by Matthew Sherrill
LET ME TELL YOU ABOUT COAL CREEK
The neglected history of Lake City Colored Elementary School
by Rachel Louise Martin
THE FERAL CHILD
After a death in the family, a father and son become unwitting art dealers
by Britta Lokting
HOME COURT
A native son of Wilmington, North Carolina, resurrects the “black country club” that helped launch the careers of Althea Gibson and Arthur Ashe, as well as his own
by Shaun Assael
Plus five writers on music and the road: Ronni Lundy, Lucas Loredo, Duncan Murrell, Mary Miller, and Kiese Laymon
Features
WHO CARRIED YOU
a story by Graham Gordy
CHOSEN HISTORY
Thomas Jefferson, Pharrell, and more notes on the state of Virginia
by Mychal Denzel Smith
POINTE D’ÉGLISE, LOUISIANA, 1959
a story by Anne Guidry
Omnivore
KEEPING THE DEVIL CLOSE
Mike Frolich’s artistic legacy in the Saturn Bar
by Anne Gisleson
SWEET THINGS
Zora Neale Hurston’s lessons in writing a love story
by Regina Porter
A HOMETOWN KIND OF THING
Creating the No Tears Suite
Art by Anastasia Samoylova, Joe Buglewicz, Tatum Shaw, Hernan Bas, Christine Elfman, Meg Griffiths, Amy Herman, Timothy Briner, McNair Evans, Johanna Goodman, Tristan Wheelock, Jason Stout, Miranda Barnes, Tom McNease, Rashid Johnson, Claire Merchlinsky, Maxine Helfman, Ann George, Amy C. Evans, Anne Gisleson, Carla Jay Harris, Brian Chilson
Cover: “Tacoma Screen” (2017), by Anastasia Samoylova, from the series FloodZone. Published in the book FloodZone (forthcoming from Steidl in fall 2019)