What an unsolved double murder in Kentucky reveals about America’s military-industrial complex.
Oxford American
Posted inArts & Culture, Nonfiction, Quotes
Of the Parade, But Not In the Parade: The Mardi Gras Flambeaux
Louisiana Rien Fertel explores the complex history of New Orleans’ flambeaux — the men who carry the torches that light the way for Mardi Gras parades — in Oxford American.
Posted inEditor's Pick
The Keepers of the Light
New Orleans’s complicated history with the Mardi Gras flambeaux — the (usually black) torch carriers who, for years, lit the way for the festival’s (usually white) parades.
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
Living the American Dream in Comer, Georgia: The Garden of Refugees
The story of Eh Kaw Htoo, a Karen refugee from Myanmar — a man who “extolled the redneck’s work ethic” and helped build a community of 150 Karens who sustain one another by living frugally and sharing the bounty of the land in the rural community of Comer, Georgia.
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
How the Blues Conquered Tokyo
I couldn’t quite figure out why Japanese listeners had come to appreciate and savor the blues in the way that they seemed to—lavishly, devotedly. Blues is still an outlier genre in Japan, but it’s revered, topical, present. I’d spent my first couple of days in Tokyo hungrily trawling the city’s many excellent record stores, marveling […]
Posted inEditor's Pick, Essays & Criticism, Nonfiction, Quotes
On Food, Family, and Love: A Recipe For Memory
At Oxford American, Ronni Lundy maps her past with family recipes.
Posted inEssays & Criticism, Nonfiction, Quotes
On Food, Family, and Love: A Recipe For Memory
At Oxford American, Ronni Lundy maps her past with family recipes.
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
Searching for Truth in Florida Folklore
In the Oxford American, John O’Connor searches the Everglades for the facts within the folklore of sugar cane farmer and outlaw E.J. “Bloody” Watson.
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
Remembering the Female Voice of the Blues
Looking at Amanda Petrusich’s 2013 Oxford American magazine story about blues singer Bessie Smith.
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
On Falsely Laying Claim to a Literary Lineage
The first time I admitted that yes, I was related to Francis Scott Key, it came as a shock, even to me, because, of course, I was lying. While my other college friends experimented with drugs and God, I experimented with genealogy. Soon, I found myself trying to learn to pretend to be a writer […]