Kelly Ann Jacobson: Orientations (short fiction)
Southern Legitimacy Statement: For the last ten years I lived in Washington, D.C. or Northern Virginia as I worked toward my undergraduate and graduate degrees and taught at several colleges. Now, I...
View ArticleD.T. Robbins: Ghosts Undying (fiction)
Southern Legitimacy Statement: D.T. Robbins was born and raised in Hammond, Louisiana by two parents who barely tolerated one another and a village of Pentecostals. He also spent a few years in...
View ArticleCon Chapman: Bo Peep ( fiction)
Southern Legitimacy Statement: I was born in Missouri, a border state, in a town–Sedalia–that was the scene of a skirmish in the Civil War. My mother’s people were from Virginia, and she took the side of
View ArticleEric Luthi: Turkeys, Clydesdales and Guided Missiles (fiction)
Southern Legitimacy Statement: i was born in Hollywood, California (yes, really) to parents who came to America after the war in Europe. My wife has a more interesting history, having ancestors who...
View ArticleDixon Hearne: Duty (short fiction)
Southern Legitimacy Statement: I was born and raised along the levees and river traces in northern Louisiana. It was an idyllic time, a Huck Finn boyhood. I moved back home two years ago, after many years
View ArticleBryanna Stutzman: The Wonders of Change (memoir)
Southern Legitimacy Statement; I was born and raised in the shadow of the Blue Ridge Mountains. “Y’all” has been part of my vernacular since birth. The Wonders of Change It was a cool autumn day,
View ArticleBrandy McCann: Of A Certain Age (fiction)
My Southern Legitimacy Statement: You can easily hear it when I talk, and even other southerners ask me where, exactly, I’m from. I have deep roots in the coalfield south. I am from a working
View ArticleTerrence Sykes: Preaching To the Chickens (fiction)
Southern Legitimacy Statement: I fear that my complete listing of southern legitimacy would crash the cosmos & petunias so I shall HENCEFORTHWITH condense – I was born a coal miner’s son in the...
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Just in case we have any European Dead Mule fans out there, we’ve installed a cookie consent page as well as the requisite notification. If you are reading this from somewhere outside the USA, thank
View ArticleRudy Ravindra: Dream Man (short fiction)
Southern Legitimacy Statement: Folks still think I’m not a true Southerner. Some of them weren’t even born when I first set foot on this region. Anyway, a few states–TN, GA, NC have been generous with...
View ArticleLaura Valeri: Ice Storm (fiction)
Southern Legitimacy Statement: I came to Savannah, GA in 2003 by way of Miami Florida, and I have since been teaching creative writing at Georgia Southern University in Statesboro, Ga. Ice Storm The...
View ArticleLanny Gilbert: The Elves and the Dwarves (fiction)
Southern Legitimacy Statement: I know what a #2 washtub, a #9 turner and a come-along are. I also know at least 3 ways to prepare chicken for Sunday lunch without going to a grocery store for
View ArticleCatherine Moore: Festival Talk (fiction)
Southern Legitimacy Statement: I was born in Virginia and write from the hills of Tennessee. Festival Talk Every time the cold grip of winter thawed to creek water in Alabama, there came the...
View ArticleSteven Carr: Noise (fiction)
Southern Legitimacy Statement: I’ve lived in Richmond, Va. for over 13 years and lived in Farmville, Va. for 2 years before that. Farmville, a small town with Southern charm, is the setting of the...
View ArticleChris Espenshade: Will to Die (micro-fiction)
For my SLS, I have worshiped at the twin altars of Stone Mountain (friction climbing) and Seneca Rocks (face and crack climbing). In my lifetime, I have achieved about a 50 percent success rate on
View ArticleFred Guyette: They Had to Call Life-Flight (micro-fiction)
Southern Legitimacy Statement: When I was a kid, my grandmother made us biscuits and gravy for breakfast, and she always made two with a special pinch of dough on the top. She called it a “hop
View ArticleJesse Miller: See It To Believe It (micro-fiction)
Southern Legitimacy Statement: parts of this world differ from others in the oddest, saddest and most real ways. and in those same differences we find similarities. such is my south. such are all...
View ArticleRobb White: The Neurosurgeon’s Rat (fiction)
My Southern legitimacy is purely honorary (two degrees from U. of Arkansas, 1985). The Neurosurgeon’s Rat The neurosurgeon grimaced at the sight of the family clustered in the waiting room. They...
View ArticleF. Brett Cox: Up Above the Dead Line (fiction)
One of our favorite stories ever published on the Dead Mule, from around 1998 or earlier — archives found on the WayBack Machine. A blast from the past, still working on rebuilding our archives. Up
View ArticleBarges by Scott McKenzie (fiction)
Another great old story from the 1990s Dead Mule School of Southern Literature. One more attempt at rebuilding our archives. This is one of my personal favorites. I think he’s known as Thomas Scott...
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