The Oxford American has been nominated for a 2017 National Magazine Award: Zandria F. Robinson’s essay “Listening for the Country” is a finalist in the Essays and Criticism category.

In February 2016, the Oxford American received a National Magazine Award for General Excellence. As we look ahead to 2017—and the OA’s twenty-fifth anniversary—we are revisiting just a few of many highlights from our pages in 2016.

Notes on the songs from our 18th Southern Music Issue CD: Visions of the Blues.

As we conceived of this issue, we sought a model for our task. (Metaphor, after all, is a hallmark of great blues.) The natural impulse behind this work, music writing—blues music writing, no less—points to the image of the lantern: illuminator, bringing light to darkened places. But a more appropriate one here is the prism: refractor, dispersing pure light to reveal the color spectrum.

Highlights from the Oxford American’s 18th Music Issue: “Visions of the Blues.”

Across the 160-page magazine and 23-song CD compilation, we’re celebrating one of the South’s greatest cultural exports: blues music.

Highlights from our Fall 2016 issue.

We now turn the Notebook over to our summer interns, who leave us today. Thank you for all your hard work! May you never again see a straight quote without flinching.

This week the editors are looking ahead at the 50th anniversary of Charles Portis's first novel, Norwood.

The journey in all its forms—going to, running from, wandering about, flying over, migrating, dispersing, coming back, moving on—is an ideal climate for narrative.

This week, the editors are listening to Chris Maxwell and Brandy Clark; dreaming of Appalachian cuisine; and remembering The Greatest. 

Roll down the road and the rails and a river this summer with stories of humanity on the move that are summery and light, lyrical and meditative.