The Oxford American welcomes fiction and nonfiction submissions, as well as proposals for articles. (There is a $3 processing fee for most categories.) The Oxford American does not accept submissions on paper and cannot return manuscripts sent to the office.
Please familiarize yourself with recent issues of the magazine before you submit. The Oxford American can be purchased at discerning bookstores and newsstands everywhere. Single-copy issues and back issues may be purchased here. Issues appear in March, June, September, and December. Our annual Southern Music Issue appears in December.
The Oxford American offers a comprehensive editorial internship program. We have full-time and part-time positions available and offer a stipend of $2,500 per term. Internships begin in January, June, and September, though the program provides some flexibility for starting dates, and the opportunity for interested interns to extend their terms. For the near future, internships will be remote.
The OA is grateful to the family of Jeff Baskin (Susan Weinstein, Bernie and Danny Baskin) for their generous support of this program. Jeff Baskin, a librarian by trade, was a lifelong and generous literary citizen. His imaginative approach to his work and his programming innovations brought reading and writing to countless in the North Little Rock community. In 2010, he initiated the Laman Library Writers Fellowship, an annual award that honored Arkansas writers. In partnership with his family, the Oxford American is proud to reinvigorate and expand this legacy to support editors and writers.
We accept applications for all terms year-round but please note the following deadlines:
- April 15 for internships starting in June
- August 21 for internships starting in September
- November 15 for internships starting in January
Interns are a vital part of the Oxford American’s print and digital production teams. The duties of an intern include evaluating manuscript submissions, participating in the planning of issues, fact-checking and proofreading stories, drafting posts for social media, and creating and maintaining digital content for the website. Interns are encouraged to participate in our off-site concerts and readings, generate article ideas, and to write for oxfordamerican.org.
Applications should include a detailed cover letter, resume, and one writing sample of up to 5 pages in length. Your sample could be one long piece or a collection of short pieces. (Samples can include critical and/or creative work, though a substantial portion should be prose.) Please specify the term for which you are applying.
The Oxford American welcomes submissions for a work of fiction from an emerging writer for our Fall 2024 issue. We are eager to feature a writer whose fiction has not yet been published in a print publication with a circulation over 5,000 copies. Stories under 10,000 words will be considered, and the selected writer will receive $1000. The Fall issue will be on newsstands starting September 2024.
Our primary consideration is quality, though we would be especially pleased to include the work of an author with ties to the South and/or a story that furthers our mission of exploring the complexity and vitality of the South.
Simultaneous submissions are welcome, though we ask that stories are immediately withdrawn from consideration following acceptance elsewhere.