It Was The New Yorker With Hot Sauce

By DWIGHT GARNER - The New York Times

The new issue of The Oxford American, that estimable and disorderly Southern literary quarterly, flopped onto my porch the other day. I stared at it for a while before picking it up. The magazine had been on my mind.

Roger D. Hodge - Dave Anderson

This year I’d planned to compose a tribute to The Oxford American on its 20th anniversary. Among the things I’d wanted to say in print were these: that it was the best and most original new American magazine of the last 25 years and that its founder, Marc Smirnoff, was the most important editor out of the South since Willie Morris.

I wasn’t planning on holding back. It’s harder than it used to be to fall in love with a magazine, especially now that they’re collapsing around us like the virus-stricken in “Contagion.” When it does happen, you should raise your hand.

Things, however, got weird. In July Mr. Smirnoff was fired after being accused of sexual harassment. Also, he admitted that he gave alcohol to under-age interns. I can’t say whether these actions were closer to peccadilloes or closer to something much worse.

But I couldn’t see publishing my assessment any longer. It was a time to hang fire. 

Full story here.