The Oxford American

Oxford American

Spring 2005 cover
Editor	Eliza Borné
Categories	Literature, Art, and culture
Frequency	Quarterly
Publisher	Ray Wittenberg
Founder	Marc Smirnoff
Year founded	1989
First issue	March 14, 1992 (1992-03-14)
Company	University of Central Arkansas
Country	United States
Based in	Conway, Arkansas
Website	oxfordamerican.org
ISSN	1074-4525

The Oxford American is an American quarterly literary magazine "dedicated to featuring the very best in Southern writing while documenting the complexity and vitality of the American South."

The magazine was begun in late 1989 in Oxford, Mississippi, by Marc Smirnoff (born July 11, 1963). Smirnoff, a native of Mill Valley, California, a suburb of San Francisco, arrived in Oxford after his BMW sedan broke down in the midst of a cross-country excursion in late 1987. While waiting for the car to be repaired, he secured a job at the independent Oxford bookstore Square Books.

At the bookstore, he met writers who passed through on author tours and local authors like John Grisham, Larry Brown, Barry Hannah, and Willie Morris. Smirnoff thus decided that the South needed a general interest magazine like The Atlantic Monthly or The New Yorker which focused on regional writers and culture. Smirnoff then began an in-depth study of the history of magazines in America at the University of Mississippi main library and read back issues of American general interest magazines.

The name "Oxford American" is a play on The American Mercury, H. L. Mencken's general interest magazine which Smirnoff long admired. Once he decided to start the magazine, Smirnoff wrote letters to American writers like John Updike, Richard Ford, Charles Bukowski, and William Steig to ask for contributions to the magazine. As a result, many writers donated work to the debut issue without requiring payment. Financed entirely through credit cards, donations from Smirnoff's friends and family, the magazine's debut issue was published on Saturday, March 14, 1992. The cover of the first issue featured a fire-engine red background with white text and a "photo-realistic" painting by Oxford painter Glennray Tutor of an abandoned gasoline pump. Three more issues were published, including one featuring previously unpublished photographs by Eudora Welty. The magazine then ceased publication in mid-1994 for lack of funding. The magazine has ceased publication several times but is currently published.