Austin Music Issue: Call for Submissions
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Following last year’s issue-length exploration of Memphis, the 2025 edition of the Oxford American’s annual Southern Music Issue is devoted to another fascinating and complex American place: Austin, Texas. We’re exploring the historical context that gave rise to the city’s reputation as “the live music capital of the world,” paying special attention to the spaces—nightclubs, saloons, festival stages—which allowed that culture to flourish. But we're also investigating the factors that threaten Austin’s vibrancy, and celebrating the folks who work to keep the sounds fresh and the venues packed through so many seasons of change.
We want to know if the psychedelic rock movement has pre-California roots in Austin and what role Lucinda Williams’s time busking on the Drag played in her trajectory from unknown songwriter to Americana icon. We want to see what gems have been uncovered by the Austin Fanzine Project’s meticulous digitization of the city’s counterculture periodicals, and to visit the spaces where Latin dance music’s vitality has persisted, from the long-gone ’90s clubs on Congress Avenue to the present-day hotspot Mala Vida. We want to find out why Guy Clark yearned to be “... in Austin, in the Chili Parlor Bar / drinking Mad Dog Margaritas and not caring where you are,” and what it meant when Kacey Musgraves sang that she “made it all the way past Austin City Limits / and maybe for a minute I got too big for my britches.” We want to learn what magic’s in the dirt at Luck Ranch, the one-time movie set and current Willie Nelson home base that his son Lukas Nelson memorialized in a 2010 song: “Just outside of Austin, higher than I’ve ever been / Just outside of Austin, I think I fell in love with you again.” No Austin subject is too great or small.
We’re eager to consider mature drafts of up to 5000 words or well-crafted proposals. Enthusiasm, surprise, and originality are essential to an OA music piece. We are interested in publishing: essays, short stories, meditations, Q&As, photo portfolios, narrative criticism, poetry, and other work that does not fit neatly into a specific genre or form.
In our attempt to assemble a love letter to Austin music spaces past and present, we’re also seeking short essays of 500–1,000 words focusing on a specific venue. The magazine’s accompanying compilation album—a limited-edition vinyl—will also honor the emotion and electricity of performance; shorter, liner-note-style essays about a specific song, artist, or live recording are welcome, too.
Please send submissions or pitches our way by July 21st. The issue will be on newsstands in December. Compensation will depend on the length and complexity of the story; all writers will be paid.
We look forward to hearing from you!