Oracle with images from inside magazine.

The Oracle

Published annually since 2003, Oracle Fine Arts Review accepts submissions each fall semester in fiction, nonfiction, poetry, visual art, and hybrid work. To get an idea of the kind of work that interests us, please view a previous issue in our archive. Print copies are available in the English department office at no charge to USA students, faculty, and staff. All submissions should be previously unpublished. Questions can be sent to oracle@southalabama.edu.

Oracle is supported by the University of South Alabama Student Government Association, the College of Arts and Sciences, and the Departments of English and Visual Arts. We are a student-led publication that aims to include and amplify a diverse chorus of voices.

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Editor's Letter

E.L. Doctorow famously stated, “Good writing is supposed to evoke sensation in the reader – not the fact that it is raining, but the feeling of being rained upon.” The excellency that we strive for at Oracle can be summed up as just that. We have so many fun and exciting events planned for this year, and I look forward to our 2023-2024 edition debuting in the Spring. 

Each year since launching in 2003, this student-led journal has showcased a wide variety of visual art, poems, and prose. Last year’s edition of Oracle spotlighted an incredible batch of creatives, all with the intention of pondering awe. With the help of former Editor-in-Chief Lela Ball and her staff, Oracle came to life. Free print copies are available in the English Department of The University of South Alabama. I encourage you to stop by and pick one up yourself!

This year’s theme will focus on the magic in this world. Submissions open via Submittable on September 15 and close on November 1. We can’t wait to hear from you.

Yours,

Mariah Conrey, Editor-in-Chief

Staff

Mariah Conrey, editor-in-chief
Kaytlin Thornton, managing editor
Emily Byars-Williams, poetry editor
Jessica Jordan, poetry editor
Gracie Coburn, prose editor
Jade Laffiette, prose editor
Caleb Johnson, faculty advisor

Current Issue

Spring 2023

Oracle Magazine Cover

 

Short Stories

Gravestone at a Cemetery.

Graveside by David Bradley

They were a harsh-looking people, gathered around the grave, and not many of them, either. It was a hot summer afternoon, but they all looked as if they’d been scourged by too many winter winds. They stood silent as a minister said words over my uncle, final words for a man he clearly knew better than I did. He’d been a favorite of mine when I was a kid, the one romantic wanderer in my life before I had any idea what that was or how I’d be attracted to them. He was the oldest of my mother’s four brothers, old enough that he’d signed up as soon as he got the news about Pearl Harbor; smart enough that he’d been sent straight to Officer Candidate School; cursed enough that he’d led a squad of tanks face to face with Rommel somewhere in North Africa. He buried the memory of that fiery defeat somewhere deep inside, refusing to disinter it until he was confined to his deathbed for a second time. I remember my mother coming home from one of her final visits when he was dying, crying to me, “After everything he did in his life, why is that what he has to go back to now?”

Poems

 

All Articles

Visual Art

  • Portrait of Quarantine 1
  • Portrait of Quarantine 3
  • Portrait of Quarantine 10
  • Lantern
  • Door
  • Chess
  • Alone
  • Mother Line
  • Idris Elba
  • Doc Holliday
  • Salma Hayek