Oxford American Closes Again

The Oxford American, the "Southern magazine of good writing," has ceased publication for the second time. The magazine's annual Music Issue featured a wonderfully eclectic CD sampler as a soundtrack for the collection of histories, memoirs, and commentary on its printed pages. Can the South's own quirky culture 'zine rise again?

This was originally planned to be an article about this year's Music Issue…until circumstances changed.

It's not too late to get a hold of this year's 6th edition, which features the magazine's trademark breeziness and multi-disciplinary eclecticism. This year's articles include features on Del McCoury, King Pleasure, The Blind Boys of Alabama, The Collins Kids, Esther Phillips, Marshall Chapman, Memphis Minnie, Blind Willie Johnson, Little Milton and [with apologies to Dave Barry: "we are not making this up"] Marilyn Monroe & Jane Russell -- all of whom appear on the accompanying CD.

The annual Music Issue helps support the Music Maker Relief Foundation, a charity based in Pinnacle, North Carolina, that provides financial support to indigent, and generally older, folk and blues musicians. The Oxford American gives ten percent of the proceeds of the Music Issue to Music Maker, and every music publisher and artist on the CD sampler waived their fees to support the project.

However, the story of the week is that the soft economy has taken its toll on advertising, and the Oxford American is closed. Again. Having been rescued from oblivion less than 2 years ago and relocated from Mississippi to Little Rock, the new publisher has been "disappointed" and is unwilling to invest more money.

Editor Marc Smirnoff issued the following statement:

• This is obviously a sad development. I hate to see the lives of the best editorial staff I've ever had the honor to work with disrupted. And I hate to see the magazine disrupted, and what that disruption means to our devoted readers and writers.
• Upon moving to Little Rock, THE OA has become smarter, more daring, and more relevant than it ever was before. It has continued to collect and excite serious readers from all over the country. I am personally very grateful that the owners of AT HOME MEDIA GROUP took it upon themselves to bring THE OA into Arkansas.
• Nonetheless, the staffers who remain don't think the story is over yet. What's prompting us to want to personally dedicate ourselves to guiding the business side of the magazine is that we simply do not think a thing with so much life left in it should die.
• Our belief is that THE OXFORD AMERICAN is singular and therefore vital. All you have to do is go to any newsstand to see that there is a glut of superficial magazines being published. These magazines seem to go out of their way to sap the human spirit.
• Thankfully, there is a community of readers who insist that a quality publication from the South, one that dares to be intelligent and soulful, contributes to the health of our culture, and that it needs to exist. OXFORD AMERICAN readers have told us over and over that there is room in their lives for our magazine. That means a hell of a lot to us.
• So against intimidating business odds, the OA staffers who remain in Little Rock--even if we have to get other jobs in the interim in order to contribute to this cause--are going to honor the faith of our good readers by doing all that we can to take care of THE OA and see that it boldly resumes publication. We thank the readers and writers and believers who have gotten us this far, and who inspire us to keep pushing ahead.

Read news coverage of the closure

Browse the Oxford American's latest (but, we hope, not the last) Music Issue

Learn more about Music Maker Relief Foundation