Eliza Borné was named editor of Oxford American in 2015.
Editor Eliza Borné forged her bond to the Oxford American in high school after finding her calling in ninth-grade Journalism 101. She became a teenage reviewer for the Arkansas Times and edited The Tiger, Little Rock Central’s award-winning paper.
Her introduction to the OA, which Borné describes as an eclectic occupant of “an undefined space between literary journal and glossy general-interest magazine,” came in 2003, the year after the publication moved from William Faulkner’s Mississippi to Little Rock.
It was the 2003 music issue that bowled her over.
“It had Esther Phillips on the cover, ‘Grits Ain’t Groceries’ is on the compilation, and it’s one of our most loved music issues,” Borné recalled, chipper and expansive, always eager to talk about publishing. “A friend of mine’s dad had shared it with me because I was on the newspaper staff, and told me I needed to know about this magazine being made in Arkansas. That really changed the trajectory of my life, discovering that a magazine of this caliber was being made in my backyard.”
By 2006, the summer before Borné’s sophomore year at Wellesley College, she landed a “dream-come-true” Oxford American internship, and by 2015 — after stints at BookPage magazine in Nashville and in junior editing jobs at OA — she was named the magazine’s top editor at just 28 years old.
Now, four years into her editorship, the magazine is launching a new look with next month’s fall edition, debuting a promising podcast and enjoying better financial health “than it may have ever had since our founding in Oxford in 1992. We’ve retired more than $1 million dollars in debt and have a positive institutional partnership” with the University of Central Arkansas, Borné said. She praised a “great, engaged board of directors” and a wide network of readers who donate.
The press run is about 25,000 copies, double that for the music issue, which arrives around Thanksgiving with curated musical selections. “We have subscribers in all 50 states, we’re on a thousand newsstands, and our music issue remains our most beloved and popular issue. We’re doing a South Carolina music issue this year and packaging it with a CD compilation, and now we have a digital download option so readers can enjoy the music on their device of choice.”
A nonprofit 501(c)(3), the OA has three roughly equal revenue sources: advertising; contributed support like fundraising proceeds, grants, foundation and corporate donations; and money earned from newsstand sales and subscriptions.
The OA’s state today is a turnabout from 2012, when founding editor Marc Smirnoff was fired in a sexual harassment scandal noted even by The New York Times, which wrote that Smirnoff had nurtured the magazine “with quirky, intellectual writing that promised to help revive the great Southern literary tradition, helped by writers like Richard Ford, J.E. Pitts and Roy Blount Jr.”
Borné, watching from Nashville, was “sad for the Oxford American and curious about what would happen next, rooting for it to survive the drama.” Roger D. Hodge, who succeeded Smirnoff, met Borné shortly afterward at the Southern Festival of Books in Nashville, introduced by Jay Jennings, editor of a noted Charles Portis anthology and now a senior editor. That led Borné back home as an OA associate editor, and she was set to rise. Her deputy editor is Maxwell George, Hannah Saulters is assistant web editor, and Sara A. Lewis is working primarily on the new podcast project. “I wanted to think about how we could make the magazine more comfortable and enjoyable for readers,” Borné said. “Why should a magazine exist in print, and what can a print publication do that digital-only can’t? We have a robust digital presence, but we continue to feel strongly about our flagship print product.”
The fall book is beautiful and thick, allowing “gorgeous full-page art.” The redesign offers breathing room and an updated suite of fonts. “It’s a little bigger type; you won’t have to pull out your magnifying glass.”
She’s proud of features like a 16-page excerpt from Nate Powell, a National Book Award-winning graphic novelist from Little Rock who illustrated John Lewis’ “March” trilogy. The excerpt was a collaboration with writer Van Jensen, an ex-Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reporter.
“You’re going to want to read something like that by holding it in print,” Borné said.
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