The Fall 2025 Issue will think expansively about the arts and culture that define and disturb our ideas of the South and Southerness.

Through new fiction and poetry, criticism, and reporting, our contributors look outward and inward to better understand the music, writing, and art that moves them.

Contributors include: Lauren Stroh, who explores the history and impact of prison journalism and The Angolite, the periodical published by people imprisoned in the Louisiana State Penitentiary; Pianist Samantha Ege and music scholar Garrett Schumann, who uncover the hidden history of Kentucky-born African-American composer Julia Perry; and contributing editor Beth Ann Fennelly, who celebrates the small wonders of married love in a series of micro-memoirs. Elsewhere in the issue, Harmony Holiday meditates on Abbey Lincoln, supper clubs, and the toil of showmanship, and James McWilliams ponders what makes a Southern photograph. This issue also features our 2025 Debut Fiction selection, a story by Chris Stavitsky.

Copies will mail to subscribers and customers who pre-ordered in mid-August. The issue will be available on newsstands on September 2nd.