Donna J. Dotson “Gus”
Southern Legitimacy Statement: I have spent my entire life at the foot of one hill or another in North Carolina. When I was a little girl, I spent my summers with my grandma and pawpaw. They were...
View ArticleJo Heath “Sweet Tea and Ice”
Southern Legitimacy Statement: Excuse me for being southern and for not. I've lived all but two of my seventy-five years in the deep south, defined here as lower Alabama, and yet I drink unsweet ice...
View ArticleJennifer Green “Keeping a Dead Mule Down”
Southern Legacy Statement – Half Mexican, Half Redneck. I use that to describe my heritage. Upon hearing that: my mother's family gets upset and offended, my father's side laughs and hollers. I'll let...
View ArticleSchimri Yoyo “Root For The Home Team”
Southern Legitimacy Statement: I spent four plus years of undergrad in Greenville, SC--the Buckle of the Bible Belt--and I've got plenty of stories to tell.
View ArticleDiane Thomas-Plunk “The Call”
SLS -- Born and raised in Memphis, Diane Thomas-Plunk is highly skilled in the three B's of Memphis -- blues, barbecue and beer. These may be enjoyed individually, in various pairings, or -- best yet...
View ArticleJohn Davis, Jr. “The Legend(s) of Mailman George”
SLS: John Davis Jr. is a sixth-generation Florida native. His poetry has covered the South like kudzu, including a prior appearance in The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature. Now he's trying his...
View ArticleBarbara Nishimoto “Identifying Trees”
Southern Literacy Statement I was born and raised in the North, but now have lived most of my adult life in the South. When I first moved my mother acted as though I were moving to another country and...
View ArticleErin Kelly “Sound No Trumpet”
Southern Legitimacy Statement: I talk slow. I eat etouffee, jambalaya and boudin. I've clapped my hands to gospel in hot, crowded churches, and visited Catholic psychics. I've gone through many...
View ArticleJackson Culpepper “Judgment House”
SLS: Growing up in south Georgia, I have a Stockholm Syndrome-type relationship to temperatures over ninety degrees and one hundred percent humidity. But the devil can have his damned gnats.
View ArticleBecky Meadows “Three Seconds”
Southern Legitimacy Statement: I grew up on my grandmother and grandfather’s farm, where we ate fried potatoes, green beans (cooked for an entire day or more on the stove in a pot), and cornbread....
View ArticleChristopher Rowe: High Water
“That was a nice cast, boy, your daddy’s been teaching you something right down there in Florida.” “Now, don’t start in again, Hiram. The child wasn’t the one decided to pick up and move off. We’re...
View ArticleAnn Hite, “A Spider’s Bite”
I know I’m southern because I survived all the unwritten rules for women. You know: Don’t sleep with a man before you’re married. Don’t smoke in public. Don’t get a tattoo. Find a good man and marry...
View ArticleJim Booth — Au Lecteur (a novel excerpt)
As a small boy, Jim Booth wanted nothing more than to be a goatherd wandering the ancient hills of his Southern homeland. Then he heard the gospel according to John and Paul and abandoned the pastoral...
View ArticleParker W. Howard “The Big Tree”
I was born and reared with one foot in Memphis, Tennessee and the other in a farm in Forest, Mississippi. I left the South for college in Montana, England, and Seattle, then returned to Mississippi in...
View ArticleLance Levens “My Daddy’s Not a Hippophagist”
One great great grandaddy sent four sons to fight at Battery Wagner and Okalustee (Fla.), another sent three to die at Vicksburg. I scratch when it itches, even when the quality is watchin'.
View ArticleJ.C. Frampton “Reena”
Born in D.C., reared in Maryland with excursions in the Carolinas and the Blue Ridge, I had Navy stopovers in Virginia and Texas and, while I currently find myself in San Diego for job purposes and...
View ArticleTracy Whitaker “Clover”
What makes me southern? I live in Richmond, Virginia, so, one, location. Two, I have lived only once in the north, and that was for a year and a half. I worked in New Jersey for Ma Bell and people...
View ArticleAndrew Killmeier “Death’s Janitor”
Southern Legitimacy: I was born and raised in Louisville, Kentucky on the banks of the muddy Ohio River. This story also takes place in the great Bluegrass State.
View ArticleSean Ryan “The Okra Story”
The three boys came back from their “coming-of-age” cross-country trip in mid-August, a few days before their freshman year at Rutgers started. When they got back, they took their girlfriends out to a...
View ArticleFeLicia A. Elam “Loretta Shine”
I was born and raised on a farm near Manchester, Tennessee, that my great-grandfather purchased after being emancipated. It is still in my family. My grandfather was a truck farmer who reared 13...
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