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 24, November / December 1998
“Whatever a soul is, I think literature does better than most ministers, priests, rabbis, or imams in creating a kind of stillness and watchfulness and attentiveness, and to me that is soulmaking.” — Will Blythe
An essay by Joy Williams. Photography by Adam Shepner and F.S. McKnight. An Interview with Will Blythe. Fiction by Ron Carlson. Michael Griffith on the Orangeburg Massacre.
Other contributors include John T. Edge, Chris Offutt, Tom Piazza, Sven Birkerts, and more.
DEAR OA
EDITOR'S BOX
JOURNALISM
SHOOTING GEORGE WALLACE
History or entertainment? The Wallace camp reacts to John Frankenheimer's Emmy Award–winning docudrama.
by Daniel Paul Simmons III
PHOTOGRAPHY
OUR JUNKYARD
by Adam Shemper
YANKEE'S CORNER
PURE SOUTHERN WEDDINGNESS
Looking for an uncynical moment of bliss.
by David Updike
SOUTHERN GALLERY
ESSAY
UNCANNY THE SINGING THAT COMES FROM CERTAIN HUSKS
Why one writer writes
by Joy Williams
POETRY
THE VILLAGE IN THE LAKE
by A. E. Stallings
JOSEPH BOLTON AN APPRECIATIVE DESPAIR
by Donald Justice
POEMS
by Joseph Bolton
PHOTOGRAPHY
THE STUDIO PHOTOGRAPHY OF F.S. McNight
SOUTHERN SCENES
SHORT STORY
THE ORDINARY SON
Growing up amid geniuses when you're not one.
by Ron Carlson
HISTORY
HOME TRUTHS
The Orangeburg Massacre remembered
by Michael Griffith
SOUTHERN GALLERY
SOUTHERN CUISINE
SMOKED & FRIED BY THE ROADSIDE
The town Calvin Trillin forgot.
by John T. Edge
MUSIC
THE ART OF THE DELTA BLUES
by Tom Piazza
SHORT MUSIC REVIEWS
BLOODLINES
A MELUNGEON GATHERING
Embracing ethnicity in Appalachia.
by Chris Offutt
BOOKS
FROM HER ROOTED PLACE
The secret voodoo of family life in Eudora Welty's fiction.
by Sven Birkerts
SHORT BOOK REVIEWS
COLUMNS
DEALER'S CHOICE
by Hal Crowther
WAVING NOT DROWNING
by Julia Reed
GONE OFF UP NORTH
by Roy Blount Jr.
Cover: "Grand Chenier, Louisiana, September 5, 1998" by Debbie Flmeing Caffery