Southern legitimacy statement: Chub Petersen’s mama didn’t teach him the necessity of summer underthings when he sat in shorts playing marbles on my front sidewalk. Consequently I received an early education in anatomy, albeit not a very welcome one. I was not skilled in marbles. That was my sister’s domain….

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I’ve spent my life in Virginia, where I’ve worked barbecue pits and the cattle farm that supplied them. I have no idea why the twangpop on the radio tries to make riding tractors sound fun. I have two tattoos. One of them is a pig inside the…

Southern Legitimacy Statement Or, I’ll Carry Myself Back Reared on buttered biscuits and fresh corn yet eschewing pinto beans, I am of the South. My people, as we call them, included The Originals, who also dispatched some of my other relatives at the Blue Ridge frontier; Ancient Planters, which sounds…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I was born in LaRochelle, France, to parents who were serving in the US Army. My dad was from Alabama, and my mom was from Columbus, Mississippi, where we settled when my dad retired from the military. Columbus — if you didn’t already know it — was…

My Southern Legitimacy Statement: We’ll stop right up here in just a little bit and get us a biscuit. All Things Watermelon I am a southerner, but I have to add not in all things, just where certain comfort foods and family are concerned. (In fact, when I tell people…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: Those memories in the creek and at the picnic table are ones I want to live forever… Our Patches Back on one of the nights in what had to be our second week—after the crying softened and the angry, delusional threats of escape went away—the generator went…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: My Southern Legitimacy Statement: I was born in Baton Rouge, LA, in 1973, to a sixteen-year old mother. I shot guns and painted cheap apartments with a bunch of drunks and did a lot of bad shit and later got a Ph.D. in psychology from UNC-Chapel Hill….

Legitimacy Statement: I was born and raised in no where, southeast Tennessee, where more men went to fight for the union (including my great great great great whatever pappy) than any other southern state during the Civil War, went to school in middle Tennessee, then up north in ye olde…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: By way of Africa, my people come from rice fields, tobacco, moonshine, and North Carolina oppressive sweat and heat. One of my great great grandmothers I am told was a 12 years young slave who was sold away in 1861 from her family to another part in…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: My whole life I never knew that my go-to drink was an area specific thing~ I found out when I went to Arkansas and when I asked for a tea, I was surprised at it being unsweet. I know now that I will forever belong to the land…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I grew up on my grandparents’ cattle farm in the Missouri Ozarks. Baptized by springs and copperheads and cow dung and cave mud and family turkey shoots, I loved every minute of it. My family raised Holsteins, hunted bobwhite quail, ate together every Sunday, and basically lived…

My Southern Legitimacy Statement: I once read Mason and Dixon by Thomas Pynchon and thought it was alright. I wrote this story based on my experience with memory and the pain of it slipping away (which is why the story ends so abruptly). The story is set in my grandad’s…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: The South is comprised of mesmerizing layers of contradiction: What people believe is true or not true. Who you choose to believe. And, what is actually true. In the end, perhaps it doesn’t matter. You find that in searching for the truth that nothing is intrinsically black…

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. When Someone Opens a Door (Be Prepared to Walk Through) That step All I had to do was…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: James Vachowski once spent 21 days confined to a quarantine facility in southern China. A former resident of both South Carolina and Beijing, he speaks Mandarin with a drawl. Missed Connections: Master Builder Seeks Missing Piece (M4W, 24) Spotted at Bay Area LUG-CON: The “1-by-5” I’ve been…

Helen Losse communicates joy and love through her poetry. She lets us into her soul. She reveals her spiritual underpinning and creates verses that sing and shine in their glory.  Helen served as poetry editor for the Dead Mule for such a long time, I don’t remember when she wasn’t…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I am a Texas girl, born and raised. My grandparents were old enough to be my great-grandparents, but they reared me. Engulfed in Southern culture and Southern COUNTRY culture, I spent my formative years on the farm. Unlike others my age, I knew how to bottle-feed a…

My Southern Legitimacy Statement : Life was meant to be lived: for better or for worse. Me and Bobby Me, Momma and Bobby were ALMOST sent to the Promised Land in a place I called Our Hide-out. It actually was an abandoned WWII tuberculosis hospital just two blocks away from…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: My people hail from Tennessee, and I grew up in my grandpa’s kitchen, with a shotgun in the corner and a bowl of reused flour where he made catheads from scratch. When the Dead One Fell From Me I had a miscarriage three days before my thirty-third…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I was born and raised in Austin, Texas, attended college in Virginia and have lived and worked in New Orleans and Tuscaloosa for the 12 years since. My two-year-old son enjoys making angel biscuits with his great-grandmother, and I do, too. Fossil Black Warrior River It is…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: Jeremy Tavares is a poet and writer of gritty fiction. He lives with his wife and son in Austin, Texas. Salvation is Scarier than Damnation Religion was scary in Middle Mississippi. It was a thing to be feared. There were dark forces slithering around in between the…

My Southern Legitimacy Statement: I soaked the cured ham for two days and then boiled it for two hours but it was still too salty so I started over, fearing I had ruined it. No, it worked, and now I serve it to friends and family. I live in rural…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: In reference to my hometown in southeastern Illinois, my cousin used to say, “The South begins about five miles south of here.” I still cannot agree. You could see the South from a ladder and it wasn’t always south. The landscape changed dramatically from the central Illinois…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: My mother is the kind of Southern that’s related to half the phone book. Her family lived on a cattle farm outside Murfreesboro back when it was regular-town sized. My dad grew up in the military and then became a preacher, so we’ve wandered around a lot…