I keep thinking about how this unique, lovely story brings the reader a triple bonus — the sense of home, of history and of compassion. Fullerton delivers all three in abundance. One can know the place as well as the people. The characters sizzle with personality. The narrator’s sense of self…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: Growing up in South Jersey with West Virginia roots brings a person towards the equator to seek understanding. While in South Carolina I decided I want to be a writer and I moved to Florida to find salvation for my mind, relaxation for my body, and to…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I spent half of my childhood living in an out-of-place dome house in a forest in Arkansas. My dad grew weed in the backyard and told me it was “smelly okra.” Shelf Clouds “Why would she make me go that way?” he asked. “That doesn’t make sense.”…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I am a native Mississippian, born in Hattiesburg, and raised just across the river in Petal, Mississippi. Most of my life, I was a professional illustrator and graphic designer. About two years ago, I moved to South Carolina, and I am now pursuing my MFA in Creative…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: My Southern Legitimacy Statement: I grew up and have lived in Missouri (Mizzourah), Oklahoma, Texas, and Virginia; my family lives in Alabama (WAR EAGLE!) and Tennessee; the Lake of the Ozarks in Arkansas is our Redneck Riviera. In my story, creek is pronounced “crick.” Creek On The…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I am a Southerner though for sure. I was raised in Florida by a dad whose family crept down from Georgia and a mom whose ancestors moseyed down from North Carolina. My grandaddy said you were all right if you came from North Carolina but South Carolina,…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: “No good Southern fiction is complete without a Dead Mule.” Karen is South of somewhere, in Vancouver, British Columbia. Pyrotechnics Leon whips the top of the lighter back and forth like a battle-ready Kalthoff repeater. The rhythmic clicking builds to a percussive fury as Jory approaches. Dust…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I live in the very south of the United Kingdom: Southampton. I attend the University of Southampton. The End of This Week Is Sunday Former muse, You lean in and pluck the hanging earring from my right lobe Pushing my hair back with your knuckles Keep it…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I go to school in Alabama, and every Friday the cafeteria serves mashed potatoes, mac and cheese, collard greens, corn bread, and fried chicken. Don’t worry, there is no shortage of y’alls, ain’ts, and down yonders in my life. Take a Step. A Small One. You wait…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: Southern since ’63 with no plans to change. What a Jezebel Looks Like If I never say nothing else in my life that’s true, they’s one thing I can say for sure and be satisfied about it: Men is dogs and always have been dogs and always…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: Born at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina and raised in Virginia, UK for a bit for school and writing and nannying and waitressing and bartending whilst lying to folks about wine, then back to Virginia without notice, before Philadelphia, and then Atlanta, which is now the place…

*Interesting to note how many “southern online literary journals” have echoed our original premise. We’ve been here since 1996, so we can truly claim to the be first to put the south online. Welcome to our Mule.  Valerie

We’ve got fiction, essays, poetry, creative non-fiction. Wow, the Mule’s plate is certainly full this month. Twenty-four years ago, when I first started publishing the Mule, formatting was one page at a time, about an hour a page. Now the Mule has a “back-end” of managed WordPress, via GoDaddy whose…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: Honeysuckles, Chopped Pork BBQ and Muscadine Wine I remember walking from my grand mama’s house with my brother. We’d walkthrough the lane that was in truth a two way, one way street. I mean the signs said one way but cars went both ways and nobody seemed…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I was born in Galveston, TX, and raised in Houston after my family evacuated following Hurricane Carla. I am educated at the University of Texas, Texas State University, and Texas Tech. That’s a whole bunch of southern bona fides. But here’s more. I grew and still enjoy…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: Born in San Diego, raised in Western PA, during my fourteenth year of existence, my parents decided to relocate the family to South Carolina. How I hated the humidity, the drawling language, and politeness. Almost two decades have passed. Could’ve moved back up north on multiple occasions,…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: My family never hid our crazy folks; they generally sat on the front porch and enjoyed the breeze just like the family who weren’t crazy. Come to think of it, we all had some crazy mixed in amongst our sanity. My mother cooked red-eye gravy every time…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: We were a prototypical southern nuclear family. My Papaw came up in the Great Smokey Mountains, near Farner Tennessee and Cherokee North Carolina. When he was nine, he lost track of the time one summer evening, squirrel hunting up on the mountain, and he avoided a sound…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: Howard is a retired materials management and manufacturing professional with over forty years in the military and manufacturing arenas. He spent time at sixty plus posts while in the military and has traveled to all fifty states (working in twenty-two of them). Howard earned a Masters from…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I grew up in a small farming town in Northeast Arkansas a mere seven miles south of the Missouri border. As a child, I would marvel at how quickly the accents changed once crossing the state line. I currently reside in Arkansas after a brief stint living…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: Lives in my town! Can’t get much more southern than that. Jonathan is a consummate writer and a wonderful gardener. He’s been southern all his life.   A COVID-19 Halloween  Out there: No pale horse Or long, black robes No latex masks Of grisly horror No long…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I may have grown up a Yankee, but I moved to Austin, Texas at 6 years old and have almost forgotten that I used to find it weird to say “y’all.” In Which Nothing Happens I was in the 5th grade when he called me a whore….

Southern Legitimacy Statement: My hometown straddles the bleeding northern edge of the South. The Mason-Dixon line runs directly through it; on the map, that line is a rut carved jagged in the earth. Step to one side, you’re in the North. Step to the other, you’re in the South. Directly…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: Virginia Lee does not consider herself a poet, but she can write a decent set of song lyrics when the wind is just right and the moon’s phase is amenable. Lee mostly writes colloquial fiction set in the American South as suits her otherwise seemingly useless degree…