SOUTHERN COMFORT

With funds dwindling and car-repair bills mounting, Marc Smirnoff walked into Oxford, Mississippi's venerable literary emporium, Square Books, and asked for a job. When he was told he could not start for 6 months, Smirnoff holed up 30 miles down the road in Holly Springs. By the time he started working at Square Books, Smirnoff, a literary and magazine junkie, realized something was missing from the local reading mix: a periodical devoted exclusively to the South's unique literary tradition. It took 5 years to make his idea a reality, but by 1992, Smirnoff had begged or borrowed the $12,000 needed to publish the first edition of the Oxford American. Oxford American then limped along for 2 years, publishing whenever funds allowed. In 1994 John Grisham had heard the magazine was in trouble, and he offered to invest. Smirnoff made Grisham publisher and co-owner.