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 All submissions should be previously unpublished.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
Dear Reader,
We live in an age of revolving headlines, unending scrolling, and overwhelming schedules.
For some of us, it is exhilarating. For the rest, it is paralyzing. In times like
these, I turn to art to, yes, escape, but also to remind myself of the beauty of humanity.
Oracle Fine Arts Review exists to be a pillar, a light, a beacon of art. I give my thanks to those who have
gone before me to build such a strong foundation.
Last year was a banner year for Oracle Fine Arts Review, with record-breaking submissions and a gorgeous print. Trinity Walker and the wonderful 2024-2025 editorial masthead curated a thought-provoking edition with the theme of TIME in mind. Wanting to continue down a similar path, our theme for this edition of Oracle Fine Arts Review is MOMENTUM.
It is my deepest hope that the momentum found in this issue’s pages will propel those who are stuck and slow those who cannot stop. We want words and images that can be a catalyst or a refuge. The neverending carousel. The child rolling down a grassy hill. The stationary swing set. The stomach lurching as the coaster begins its terrifying descent. Find yourself running amongst the marathoners and resting with the weary.
Oracle XXIV will be released in the Spring of 2026. I can’t wait for you to hold it
in your hands.
Never stop creating,
Hannah Rhodes, Editor-in-Chief
Editorial Masthead
Hannah Rhodes, editor-in-chief
Trinity Walker, managing editor
Roe Van Derwood, lead poetry editor
Rebekah Chappell, lead prose editor
Maggie Cargill, nonfiction prose editor
Josie DiCapua, nonfiction prose editor
Lauren Hartley, poetry editor & social media director
Jade Laffiette, fiction prose editor
Jada McGrady, poetry editor
AJ Miller, fiction prose editor
Ari Theodore, poetry editor
Kaytlin Thornton, poetry editor
Allie Parker, visual art director
Lucas Jorgensen, faculty advisor
Current Issue
Spring 2025
Short Stories
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
