Southern Legitimacy Statement: I was born by coal oil lamplight in a tin-roofed farmhouse 6 miles outside Liberty, Mississippi. I list logging, plowing with a mule, picking cotton and working in a country store in my resumé. Learned to swim in an Amite River swimming hole–no lessons. My uncle went to…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I was born in Knoxville, TN. and lived in Tennessee and Virginia while growing up. However, we moved North to Chicago a few years later. Dirt Clods Dirt clods were rock and clay projectiles molded together and thrown at each other by the kids in my new…

Acknowledgments This chapbook is dedicated to self. The first 33 poems were written in the Old Capital of China, Xi’an, in 2016 and the last few poems were composed at the immigration hospital in the city of Columbia, South Carolina, U.S.A. in April 2017. During my harshest time in Xi’an,…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: An image of a worn Meerschaum clinched tightly between my father’s tobacco-stained teeth as he loosed an iron horseshoe toward a wooden stob in the ground. Granny’s Rapture “Bobby, you better git in here fore the Rapture comes and leaves you behind.” I had just pitched a…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I was born in Stone Mountain, Georgia and live in Savannah, Georgia. I went to school in South Carolina and Alabama. When I joined the Army they stationed me at Fort Benning, Georgia. The south won’t let me go. The Bunker Forward Operating Base Rusty was a…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: My family migrated from the red clay hills of Northeastern Mississippi to the mountains of North Carolina, up around Asheville, when I was three. Buncombe County. Origin of the word “buncombe,” later “bunkum,” later “bunk.” Meaning nonsense, blather, twaddle. We couldn’t afford ice cream, but when the…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: It’s true I was born and raised in Chicago, but after my parents died, I found evidence that I was conceived in Tucson, Arizona. I ended up living in Tucson quite by accident nearly twenty years ago. Years before, I lived in Houston, Texas where my home…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: This piece will resonate the most with New Orleanians/ southeastern Louisianans, but I hope the bigger picture will resonate with all, regardless of geography. Nectar Cream It was August when I first learned that your favorite Hansen’s snoball flavor is also Nectar Cream. Even for the hundreds…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: It’s true I was born and raised in Chicago, but after my parents died, I found evidence that I was conceived in Tucson, Arizona. I ended up living in Tucson quite by accident nearly twenty years ago. Years before, I lived in Houston, Texas where my home was…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I live in Southern California and have recently spent time traveling through Arizona and New Mexico. These short essays come out of two recent trips. Five Micro-Essays Natural Concern I’ve never loved the red alders of Willapa Bay, but I would give them a chance. I would…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: My name is John Dailey. I was born and raised along the Virginia / West Virginia border and lived on both sides. The Marine Corps took me away for a number of years, but I now reside on the North Carolina coast and am looking for a…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I live in Fort Worth but hope to die in the desert. I love my two dogs, two daughters, and Texas, but not necessarily in that order. Mark A. Nobles is a sixth generation Texan born on Fort Worth’s infamous Jacksboro Highway and proudly claims blood and…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I grew up in Easley, South Carolina, and now reside in Hendersonville, North Carolina. The closest I came to living in the northeast was when I lived in Maryland, and I lived there only a few months. All In a Day’s Work Candy Bar I entered the…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: My poetry focuses on my small hometown in Central Florida, celebrating the natural, beautiful, strangeness of the people and place that shaped me; the portion of the state that often goes unnoticed. Crystal and Walt I. Crystal Says She’s Not in Denial I’m never going to tell…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I was engaged in Mississippi; did not work out. I was married in Jacksonville, Florida; did not work out, except for a great son. I was married in Wrightsville Beach; we are coming up on our 26th anniversary. The Keeper He had played goalie or keeper in…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: Native to Virginia and long-resident in Georgia, I’m as Southern as Southern can be. (Let’s not talk about the seven-year stretch in New Jersey.) A prominent Mid-Western poet once told me during a workshop, “I could listen to you read the phone book.” Three Poems Idlewild The…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: Lucinda Trew lives and writes in Charlotte, N.C. She studied journalism and English at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill… Women Who Lunch I was once hit by an automobile, announced the white-haired lady lunching with friends. At a crosswalk where there should have been…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: A self taught artist, sculptor and writer from the Appalachians of eastern Kentucky. My writings transcribe life among the hills and hollers of Kentucky, the people and their culture. From My Mountains, An Epilogue I was planted among these hills at the age of twelve after moving…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: Although a Northerner by birth (and due to no fault of my own), I was raised in Eastern Kentucky amongst the hills and hollers, and attended college in North Carolina, before returning to the beautiful Bluegrass State and settling in the Derby City of Louisville – a…

September’s got some great writing, y’all. Get your fill of August now and get ready for next month! (of course, August’s not going anywhere, the Mule remains available each month, it’s not like we delete past issues or anything, duh) We think the combination of essays, memoirs, poetry and flash…

Nora Brown just got out of school.  When she finally began to be really discovered as a singer and artist, her YouTube videos were beginning to become popular and she was only 12.  Her daddy Benton Brown set up this interview, and they were kind enough to schedule it in….

Southern Legitimacy Statement: A quarter-century ago, I rode my motorcycle south and bought a pickup truck. It and I are now covered in rust. Imperfect I wandered Manhattan’s East Side that night with my nerdy left-back classmate Aaron Rabitcheff, wishing I had female companionship instead — someone who would squint…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I have published in North Carolina, baby-sat three grandchildren there, and trained with the EKSU’s 278th Infantry Regiment (activated for the Korean conflict) at Fort Devens, MA and was one of the two Northerners on the undefeated post football team. Red High Heels at the River Odd…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I was born and raised in Missouri and now live (very, very) close to Atlanta. With the exception of college, I have spent my entire life in the South. Mimi Mimi I met Mimi when I was almost 14.  I fell for her instantly.  Her eyes were…