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 23, Fall 1998
“You have to accept yourself, without any concern for success, without any hope for any special kind of achievement. Just do the work…I think that is the beginning.” — Ha Jin on being a writer
Features by Diane Roberts and Mark Richard. Fiction by Ha Jin. Photo Essay by Bayard Wootten. Padgett Powell on “What Southern Literature Is.” Poetry by Andrew Hudgins, Wyatt Prunty and Eric Ormsby. A Elegy for Carl Perkins by Tom Piazza.
Other contributors include Randall Curb, Hal Crowther, Julia Reed, Roy Blount Jr., and more.
FEATURES
50,000,000 FANS CAN'T BE WRONG
A Southern woman dissects Southern football.
by Diane Roberts
WHO IS THAT MAN TIED TO THE MAST?
A writer’s memoir.
by Mark Richard
SHORT STORY
A TIGER FIGHTER IS HARD TO FIND
by Ha Jin
PHOTO ESSAY
REDISCOVERING Bayard Wootten’s PHOTOGRAPHS
ESSAYS
WHAT SOUTHERN LITERATURE IS
by Padgett Powell
MY SECRET LIFE AS A BLACK MAN
by Anthony Walton
DEPARTMENTS
EDITOR'S BOX
DEAR OA
SOUTHERN MUSIC
ELEGY FOR CARL PERKINS
by Tom Piazza
SOUTHERN GALLERIES
SOUTHERN ART
OF TIME AND THE RIVER
Sailing down the Mississippi with New Orleans artist Simon Gunning.
by Chris Waddington
POETRY
SOUTHERN BOOKS
A ROOM OF HIS OWN
Was Truman Capote a great writer?
by Randall Curb
SHORT BOOK REVIEWS
SHORT MUSIC REVIEWS
COLUMNS
DEALER'S CHOICE
by Hal Crowther
WAVING NOT DROWNING
by Julia Reed
GONE OFF UP NORTH
by Roy Blount Jr.