Oxford American

The Oxford American is a quarterly literary magazine from the United States that focuses on showcasing outstanding Southern literature. It aims to capture the richness and complexity of life in the American South.

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Know Your Burger

1 week ago | oxfordamerican.org | David Cook

A version of this story originally appeared in Food as a Verb, an independent media company based in Chattanooga, Tennessee, co-founded by author David Cook and photographer Sarah Unger. Food as a Verb is devoted to spotlighting the people and places within the South’s food landscapes. To eat in modern America is to participate in not-knowing.
Issue 128, Spring 2025

1 month ago | oxfordamerican.org | Madeline Weinfield |Latria Graham

THE FOOD ISSUEIN THE STREETS WITH THE KREWE OF MUNG BEANSRedefining the spirit of New OrleansBy E. M.
Lena Richard’s New Orleans Cookbook

1 month ago | oxfordamerican.org | Mayukh Sen

One night, the chef Lena Richard dreamt of fruit. She pictured a dessert fashioned in the likeness of a watermelon, only one that you could eat “clean through the rind,” as she told the Times-Picayune in 1938. When she awoke, she actualized her vision: She blanketed the bottom of a crescent-shaped mold with whipped cream—the lower half tinted with green food dye, the upper half white—to simulate the fruit’s rind.
Oxford American | A Local Loaf

2 months ago | oxfordamerican.org | David Cook

Photo by Food as a Verb, Sarah Unger A few years ago, Erik and Lauren Zilen began counting hands. The husband-and-wife owners of Niedlov’s Bakery and Café in Chattanooga, Tennessee, were trying to put a number on everyone involved in making one loaf of Niedlov’s bread. “How many sets of hands did it take?” Erik wondered. In 2016, Erik and Lauren bought Niedlov’s.
Oxford American | Rude Angel

Dec 10, 2024 | oxfordamerican.org | Stephen Deusner

Photograph by Trey Harrison Lori Godwin drove her Chevette to Memphis the first chance she got. Growing up in Savannah, Tennessee—just two hours away but a completely different world—she visited the big city during family trips in the late ’70s and early ’80s, and the place stuck in her imagination. Her older sister, who married and moved to Memphis, would call home and place the phone next to the radio so that Lori could stay up late listening to WEVL.
Makin’ a Dolla Out a Dime

Dec 10, 2024 | oxfordamerican.org | Charles Hughes

Talibah Safiya photograph by Anthony Lorenzo It’s a fitting origin story. As acclaimed Memphis artist Talibah Safiya began work on a new blues-infused project that became her astonishing 2024 album Black Magic, her husband brought her a book that he bought: Angela Davis’s Blues Legacies and Black Feminism. For Safiya, the reading was revelation.
The Sound of Music in Hawkins Bolden’s Scarecrows

Dec 10, 2024 | oxfordamerican.org | Rebecca Bengal

Hawkins Bolden at home in Memphis. Photograph by Ted Degener The self-taught sculptor brought Memphis to galleries around the country Standing in an art gallery in downtown New York City, I am trying to recall the scarecrows of my childhood. North Carolina mountains and foothills. My grandparents on my dad’s side were, proudly, small farmers from generations of small farmers; my grandfather on my mom’s side managed to escape the cotton fields of an equally long line for another life.
Oxford American | Slow Train

Dec 10, 2024 | oxfordamerican.org | Elle Perry

Al Green, ca.1973 © United Archives GmbH/Alamy In Take Me to the River, his 2000 autobiography, Al Green wrote about his God-given gift of singing. Green remembered a teacher in his eastern Arkansas elementary school asking each child in the class what they wanted to be when they grew up. His answer was “singer,” causing the other children to erupt in laughter and the teacher to admonish him for being unrealistic.
A. C. “Moohah” Williams and His Teen Town Singers

Dec 9, 2024 | oxfordamerican.org | Alice Faye Duncan

Photograph courtesy Joan Williams Patterson When the Oxford American dispatched a call for stories about Memphis music, I called Verna Vaughn, my favorite local librarian. At eighty years old, bespectacled in silver harlequin frames, she lives in pursuit of good food, blues music, and an ever more meticulous understanding of Memphis history. I asked, “What Memphis artist is uncelebrated and needs a revival?”Verna served a swift directive. She said, “Write about A. C.
Presence and Connection

Dec 9, 2024 | oxfordamerican.org | Jay Jennings

Search on the internet (let’s use DuckDuckGo) for Julien Baker’s song “Mental Math,” and you get pretty quickly to a site that uses AI to generate an “essay” about the “meaning” of the song.