John Shoptaw : It's curious to me that there is such a thing as "southern literature" but no such thing, for instance, as "northern literature" or "mid-western literature" in that the latter evoke no clear associations. Perhaps only "New-England literature" has a similarly sharp profile. I think of Emily Dickinson, "I see - New Englandly -".

Curious : The Oxford American bills itself as the "Southern Magazine of Good Writing." Is it also a magazine of good southern writing? I find the bill potentially misleading. It makes me think of 2 guys with mullets and Nascar hats and cutoff tees sitting on the gate of their truck with a case of beer and a hound dog, going: Cletus: "Yeah, well Joyce never did it for me" Dwayne: "Hell no" Cletus: "But that Rimbaud guy werent so bad" Dwayne: "You kiddin me?" Cletus: "That whole thing of the boat going through hell, man that was pretty cool. it was like that Meatloaf cover" Dwayne: "I heard he was kinda funny. Like not funny ha ha" Cletus: "I heard he was into guns" Dwayne: "Well all right then. maybe give that a whirl. Next up we're gonna take a look at what is purported to be Voltaire's guide to dressing a fresh killed buck"...

knowles : not sure Cletus and Dwayne are representative of everyone in the South. The OA's tagline means that it publishes the best writing it can find that is oriented toward southern culture. No different than a magazine about California writing would feature stories set in California. Southerners are notoriously proud and defensive about their region, but it must be said that it does have a very specific, unique culture. Nascar and shotguns may be a feature of some southerners' lives, but the depth of artistic talent, from Faulkner, Welty, Penn Warren to Muddy Waters and Louis Armstrong demonstrates that regionalism, channeled through both a rich and violent history, speaks to a more significant culture than Cletus and Dwayne are letting on

Former OA Supporter : If we are to achieve a post-racial world, we need to move beyond "Southern" anything. Can't get into the OA since Marc Smirnoff mis-managed the mag into near-bankruptcy and needed bailing out not once but twice.

cristen : knowles, thank you for your intelligent comeback to curious! makes good sense.

Cletus : I'd be curious where you're from, Curious. Mocking southerners is the last socially acceptable stereotype. Way to go. With some practice, perhaps your cheap and well-worn jokes could make the pages of "Mad."

traveler : Smirnoff is from California originally. Like many in the New South he's an immigrant to the region. So its no surprise he would poll his readers and not just be beholden to cliches.

Jon Smith : From this interview, Smirnoff seems to have his head and his heart in the right place. I'd add that you don't have to drive from Conway to San Francisco to see a different culture; you can drive 15 miles from meth-lab-ridden Walker Co., AL (if you're looking for "Cletus" and "Dwayne"), to Birmingham's Crestwood neighborhood, full of neat bungalows gentrified largely by gay couples who "discovered" the neighborhood in the 90s. Then you can eat at a restaurant in Gourmet Magazine's national top ten and take in a concert by the surprisingly good Alabama Symphony. The trouble starts when you act as though Walker County (or Conway, AR) is the "real" South and Birmingham, Atlanta, etc., are not, even though most Southerners now live in urban areas. (Or, you know, Virginia and North Carolina aren't "really" southern because they went for Obama.) Again, I think Smirnoff "gets" that, but his example didn't help his case. I gotta say, though: while lists are always controversial, that southern fiction one really is Godawful. (Smirnoff puts it more gently.) Part of the reason seems to be that the OA may not have worked very hard on the judging panel, which seems in general to range from conservative wingnut (whoever voted for The Education of Little Tree, a fake Southern Native American autobiography actually written by a Klansman) to tepid middle-of-the-roader (an apparently large group that put middle-school texts like To Kill a Mockingbird way, way up there). On the scholarly side, the list is pretty heavily weighted toward older scholars, as if the OA asked a few such folk they knew, who then recommended either a) their like-minded friends or b) their like-minded former grad students. Old isn't necessarily bad, of course, but old-school "southernist" approaches (which have an even worse reputation in academia than the "southern lit" designation does among writers) definitely predominate here. Almost the only major outliers on the judging panel (in terms of BOTH demography and approach) appear to be Harry Stecopoulos and Nicole Waligora-Davis, both rising stars. But the field is changing rapidly, and there are lots more where they came from. Next time maybe they'll ask Riche' Richardson at Cornell, Melanie Benson at Dartmouth, or Jennifer Greeson at Virginia instead of people whose careers and life experiences are more reflective of an earlier era. On the other hand, a lot of the younger scholars are pretty skeptical of the notion of a southern canon anyway (Jeffrey Brown was right to ask about this) so maybe they just didn't bother to send back the form. Either way, their silence is loud here.

Lightlybattered : "Former OA Supporter"--I find it odd that you discredit southern regional identity based on the notion that it inherently perpetuates negative attitudes about racial differences. I never thought that the achievement of a "post-racial world" meant that Americans must abandon their notions of distinctiveness as individuals or communities based on ethnic and cultural traits, as well as historical experiences. Your criticism of OA is based on a number of false assumptions: 1.) You imply that "Southern" identity and culture is exclusive to the experience of white southerners, and does not speak to the experiences and self-identification of the millions of African Americans who call the South their home. You dismiss the fact that black and white southerners share history, memory, the burden of rural poverty, and yes--the legacy of Jim Crow. 2.) You also assume that if the distinctiveness of the South were to melt into the BLAND homogeneity of, what?--midwestern/culturally unidentifiable middle-America--that racial harmony would flourish throughout the land? I think that if you were to count up the number of racially motivated hate crimes in the United States in the last decade, you will find the majority of them occured outside of the South. But perhaps you, like Stephen Colbert, don't see race. My condolences.

photogirl2 : Great writing, great mag, great survival story. You can't fault Mr. Smirnoff for persevering. There is plenty of room in the world for another good literary magazine. All its detractors can't overide the fact that is has managed to stay afloat for as long as it has.

Campbell : Southern literature or not, anyone who grew up in the South appreciates the thickness of the culture and how the various strains can be interwoven. Poverty, closeness to the land, struggles for respect, big families and religion mixed in the South in an unsual way and took in bits and pieces from various ethics backgrounds. Be careful in underestimating Cletus or Nugene or Roosevelt....there is a lot more going inside the head than they want you to know....good luck to Smirnoff and OA and thanks to Jeff Brown for the interview...when in Conway be sure to try the Stobie's cheese dip and for sure visit during Toad Suck Daze or the End of the World Greek Show (if the fraternity who sponsored gets re-instated) or for the more "cultured" the Arkansas Shakespeare Theater...

Palletonyourfloor : With our "Adam-ic" impulse to name and classify everything under the sun, and our academic impulse to form niches of expertise and secure tenure, there are other regional subset's of American literature. The literature of the Pacific Northwest, American Indian Literature/First Nations Literature, Literature of the Southwest. In those Lits we look at how the people who populate the regions/societies react to change. If what we traditionally view as great Literature comes from times of intense change (Hawthorn's New England, Hugo's France, Bulgakov's Russia) then it makes sense that southern lit sticks out when we look at 20th century American works--especially when we look at it with an eye toward regional identity. Socially, it was undergoing the most intense change--a defeated country, essentially, trying fold itself back into the U.S. while trying to overcome extreme poverty and racial inequality. Wt wasn't a quiet bee-hive with plenty of honey. It was an angry hornet's nest. An interesting, frightening place. It's literature became an interesting study. People who love southern lit are essentially nostalgic about what the term represents. They hold on to it because when we hear "southern lit" we think "greatness." We automatically list the names: Faulkner, Welty, O'Conner, McCullers. It's all point-of-pride. And why wouldn't they cling to it, when a good portion of the rest of the country still wants to "Cletus-ize" the population of the South in the popular imagination. Today, most "Southern writers" eschew the idea that their quirky southerness is all they can offer the world. Think Richard Ford or Inman Majors. The modern south is not in the same throes of change as the south of the last century. It deals with the same changes that the rest of America does. Are those changes viewed through a specific cultural lens? Sure, but a lot of times that lens is a load of trumped-up BS. As Barry Hannah writes, "The South has stewed in it's own juices too long. We are nostalgic by age twelve"(not at all verbatim). My only problem with the Oxford American is that it too often seems to gentrify things--gets a little too close to being Southern Living. I would like to see it get dirtier, at times, hate itself more. Something closer to what made the Dixie Limited great--"I don't Hate it. I don't hate it!" should mean something when the emotions behind it caused a character to thrown himself off a bridge. Loving something doesn't have to mean you only look at the good parts. In other words, be a little more honest. Smirnoff has done a good job with the magazine. It does contain great writing, at times. But it also flinches too much at the harder edges, and it often seems "stewed in it's own juices too long." I don't live there now, but I am from the deep south and love it. But sometimes sweet tea gets too thick to drink.

leonard kessler : I came upon OA by accident... Having lived in Oxford, England for tour of duty with the US Infantry in WW2 , I assumed that the the Oxford/ American magazine was printed in Oxford ,England not Oxford Mississippi .... what a pleasant surpprise when I received by first issue..... I have never regretted my mistake....It's refreshing, well written... good design and layout... and Smirnoff has done a magnificent job editing and handling all his financial problems... he is the American Sisyphus... pushing that rock up his mountain in Oxford... then another big rock in Little Rock and now in Conway.... Bravo! Marc....The articles and the Music editions are pure joy... Keep on doing what you are doing.... A fan....

Quarters : Didn't think until rigid limits on free speech got even more rigid, the inclination to write on PBS became remotely relevant. i like writers, playwrights and film directors who can work with an idea and be creative, not exactly in the tradition of the English or Russian novels of the 19th century. Don't get me wrong, they are great, but often times you don't have time on a 50-hour a week schedule to research the premises of the intracacies. Longtime rigidd Southern "regionalists" or "culturalists", while trying to rev some new energy still objects to literary experimentation with genres and relevant complaints and ideas about democracy, technology, civil and human rights, manipulation, and preferences for difference and a different approach. Literature in the fiction-form is no longer about that stuff, though this is limited in terms of the cutting edge, unless you want to declare "Book of the Month" and talk about Dostoevsky and Joseph Conrad. Otherwise, not much seems to be going on.