Features

“The Innocent Negro”
The controversial world of outsider art.
By Tessa DeCarlo

Pageants Are My Life
A trip into the strange heart of child beauty pageants.
By Luke Dittrich

Short Story

The Eye of the Fire
A previously unpublished story by the author of Deliverance.
By James Dickey

Departments

Local Fare

An Untidy Pilgrimage
The extravagant adventures of the neglected food writer Eugene Walter.
By John T. Edge

Business

Man’s New Best Friend?
A North Carolina couple wants to donate tiny horses to the blind. Is this a good idea?
By Andrea Cooper

Politics

Behind These City Walls
There are mysteries constructed into the very buildings of Washington, DC.
By Diane Roberts

A Southern Abroad

Space Invaders
A black American explores the murky racial boundaries of South Africa.
By John Simpkins

Animal Life

Prissy
The thrill and savagery of chicken farming.
By Chela Gutierrez

Forum

Stand and Deliver
Friends and colleagues remember James Dickey (1923–1997)

Oral History

Growing Up with Mr. Faulkner
Remembering life next door to a Nobel Prize-winner
Robert Ashford Little as told to T.E. Simmons

Videos

Straight, No Chaser
The unsettling power of Southern Comfort.
By Stewart O’Nan

Book Views

The Conflict Within Ourselves
A Recent biography of Allen Tate chronicles the Fugitive poet’s inner quarrels.
By Lem Coley

Southern Music

Sweetening the Lemon
A new collection polishes the tunes of bluesman Blind Lemon Jefferson.
By Tom Piazza

Columns

Meditations for Bad Girls
By Vicki Covington

Dealer’s Choice
By Hal Crowther

Gone Off Up North
By Roy Blount Jr.

Poetry

To Virginia
By Forrest Gander

Spitting
By Michael McFee

The Request
By Ron Rash

Cover: (Left to right) Ensign Charles W. Miller, LTJG. Henry H. Dearing, and LTJG. Bus Alber walking toward their planes on board the USS SARATOGA for the Rabaul raid, 1943. Photo from the National Archives.