EWN'ers in Oxford American

The Oxford American keeps their streak of excellent issues alive with the most recent issue - The Best of the South.

There's a great article by David Ramsey about Billy Mitchell, the greatest video game player ever. You don't need to be a video game geek to enjoy this article. In fact, I imagine if you are one, you might pass out a time or two during your reading of it.

The issue also has an argument from William Caverlee that Flannery O'Connor's A Good Man is Hard to Find is the best Southern short story ever written - not something I'd argue with too vehemently.

After the jump, read what three of the contributors have to say about their contributions and the issue in general:

I asked Nic Pizzolatto, Kirby Gann and Jason Ockert about their Bests (Nic and Kirby) and short story (Jason) - about being published in OA, and what piece in the issue is their favorite.

Nic Pizzolatto
"The Oxford American publication, while very nice, wasn't that big deal to me. It was such a short piece it felt more like a lark.
My subject was the town where I grew up, about which I have many conflicting emotions and opinions, and the Ode was just a way to try expressing some of those things in under 1000 words. They didn't have any list that I saw from which to choose a topic; they contacted me and asked if I could write a brief piece about anything Southern, and I wrote the Lake Charles Ode that morning in about an hour.
My favorite piece inthe issue is, hands-down, Jack Pendarvis's 'Ode to Warren Oates.'

Kirby Gann
Yes, getting published in the Oxford American was kind of a big deal for me. It's a high-profile magazine, and any writer would like to place work that might help expose that writer to a wider audience. Since I consider myself to be in the ranks of the obscure, it did a bit of good for my confidence to have work appear among the names of writers whose names I can identify and whose writing I admire.
I'm not very goal-oriented, though I try to be. I'm more of a wishful thinker. For example, several times I've picked up an issue of OxAm and thought, "wouldn't it be great to have something of mine here ... Maybe just before that piece by Padgett Powell or Bobbie Ann Mason ... And then Powell would like what I wrote and send me a note and then we'd be pals and I would feel very cool."
We kind of stumbled on to the topic for the Ode. Dolores Alfieri, an editor there, contacted me and mentioned the project and asked if I'd be interested in submitting something. She gave me a couple of days to come up with ideas. This was actually the hardest part for me, as I don't consider myself a true Southerner (does Louisville count as being Southern? People talk about that here a lot) and so wasn't sure I could come up with anything that OxAm would be interested in. But when I think of "THE SOUTH" I think of a fascination with politics, especially local politics; recently I'd been rereading ALL THE KING'S MEN and so that book's themes were in the forefront of my mind; and then we have this colorful governor providing an entertaining story here. Dolores liked that idea the best.
The origianl title was "An Ode to the 'Great Twitch," by the way, and not the "slick politico" that they went with. I don't even know, really, what "slick politico" means. But the editors thought that nobody would know what "Great Twitch" was refering to, and they wre probably right. Unfortunately. Have you read ALL THE KING'S MEN? It's too long by aout 150 pages at least, but man that is one great novel anyway. Smart and soooo relevant still.
I'm not sure I could pick a favorite piece. All the Odes have their charms. I liked Kevin Brockmeier's fiction, and the Wells Tower piece, too.

Jason Ockert
For me, the Oxford American is one of the best places I've ever been published. It's my first glossy, after all. The audience who reads the OA is exactly who I'm trying to reach with my work. There's a kind of pride and bravado and swagger to the magazine and I'm honored to be included.
Editing "Jakob Loomis" was pretty wonderful because, after working with two editors, the story is better. Most of the changes came to the ending and better weaving Jakob into the narrative. The changes, by the way, were on par with a few other magazines I've worked with in the past.
Of course, I liked a lot in the magazine. However, my favorite story is "The World's Greatest Sensational Mystery" (by Karen Russell), I really like "The Perfect Man" (by David Ramsey) -- I was a video game hound, and my favorite ode is "An Ode to the End" (by John Simpkins), and, well, I also like "That Pecker" (by Chris Bachelder). A lot, I know. What can I say; there's some fine work between the pages.

Comments

[aaron]

Wow, this really is a friggin' great issue. Ockert's story is wonderful -- one of my favorites of his -- The PacMan guy piece is awesome, and Bachelder's essay is also amazing.