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Southern Legitimacy Statement: We moved to North Carolina when I was ten. It was 1979, and I watched The Dukes of Hazard religiously. I spent summer days in the woods along the Haw River. My buddy and I would walk the creek looking for crayfish, keeping a careful eye out…

And here is my Southern Legitimacy Statement: I was born in Jackson, TN, and grew up in Johnson City, TN, living there from the time I was two until I was twenty-four. I’ve lived in Mississippi and Georgia, but most of my adult life has been in or around Chattanooga,…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I am a Gulf-Coast Southerner, through and through. I was born in New Orleans, Louisiana. For the first half of my life, I lived in uptown until Hurricane Katrina. After swimming out of my home and all of that jazz, I moved around the country until I…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I speak with a muddled southern accent. I lived in the north all my life, but my father’s family comes from the south, and on their trek north they didn’t bring money, brains, better ideas, or even sanity with them; nothing at all except the cumulative degenerative…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: Work, labor, and economy have been areas of focus in my art practice over the last several years. Before I began my journey as a visual artist and educator, I worked blue collar jobs in the printing and manufacturing industries. Manual labor, the daily grind, hustling, however…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I am a Kentucky boy who is born and raised in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains that is telling a story about going to the Dollar Store. Plus Fried Taters touch my soul. A Trip to the Dollar Store I did not have a Granny that…

Southern Legitimacy Statement | My Dad was born at the Hotel Dieu in New Orleans, and none of his family had ever ventured far past the Mississippi River before he did. Though born in Texas, I grew up in Belle Chasse, LA. (the boot of the boot of Louisiana) from…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I had a northerner ask me where I was from. I replied, “I’m a Virginian.” He thought that pretty efficient: I told him where I was from and what I was in one statement. Redneck Exhumation “You know my creeds: Dirty for dirty, and Don’t have to…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: Though I was born in upstate New York and grew up in Michigan, my Southern leanings began to emerge when I studied Faulkner, blues, and jazz in college. I’ve now lived for almost twenty years in the South and have earned regional citizenship by virtue of loving…

Southern Legitimacy Statement — I was born, and have lived, and have not left for more than 25 days, an area bound to the east by I-65 in Birmingham and to the west by Lurleen B. Wallace Blvd in Tuscaloosa, and bounded no more than ten miles to the north…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: Kristina Heflin spent her formative years hiking in the Georgian foothills of the Appalachians. It was there she learned a love for all animals, from the squishy frogs of the backwoods criks to the bumbling bears of the piney mountains. Today, she passes on her love and…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: Kelly Jones hates the sound of cicadas but loves lightning bugs, biscuits, and the way kudzu makes fun shapes out of old houses and powerlines. Their power animal is the manatee, and Wild Turkey is their strong drink of choice. They were born in Raleigh in the…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I was raised dirt poor on a poor dirt farm in eastern North Carolina. I have written since I was small and have always been fascinated by people’s motivations. I somehow was able to get a good education and eventually tenure at a major university. I am…

The Witch, The Egg, and the Cure Imagine that you have asthma. You are ten years old. Your life just started yet every day feels like a step closer to the end. You try to take a deep breath but doing so makes you cough for five minutes. Snacks and…

Southern Legitimacy Statement Born and raised in Caldwell County, North Carolina, I have lived in the Old North State most of my life (except for two soggy years in Oregon — what was I thinking?). I am the youngest of three sisters raised in our Mama’s beauty shop, which was…

Southern Legitimacy statement(s): 1) I’m from further South than most Southerners, 2) Dang redbugs! Southerisms from the Spanish Moss Belt I live in Alachua, Florida. Not quite the Florida most people think of when they envision South Beach, The Orlando Magic, or Tampa International Airport. I am in live oak…

I’m Charlie Southerland. When you check up on me, you’ll also find ‘Charles’ Southerland in most of my published work. It is regrettable and unavoidable. However, I live on my 240-acre farm, which is more than I deserve or can take care of out here in North-Central Arkansas, smack in…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I was born in Atlanta, Georgia and reared on Saturday morning biscuits from the 1956 To The Bride Cookbook. My mother’s family owned a dairy farm in Mississippi and her Southern Baptist Minister grandfather stopped a lynch mob in Cedartown, Georgia. My sister makes dilli beans months…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: As proclaimed in the foreword of my coming-of-age novel “Saint Andrews’ Parish”: “I count it a blessing of the first magnitude: Being born in Charleston, South Carolina, and growing up in that part of it known as Saint Andrew’s Parish. ‘The Parish,’ as many referred to it,…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: Now, I’m not about to claim New Orleans as distinctly southern, and certainly not New Smyrna Beach or Key West. And I’m sceptical of all variants of y’all on the page. But look at how I spell sceptical…. Three Bus Having brought the coffee to his lips,…

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. Nudge Apa The Hungarian word for grandfather is nagyapa.  My great-grandfather died a mere two days prior to…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: This piece details a memory I share with my little sister while visiting my mother’s best friend, who was born and raised in the South. She ran her household as if she still lived in Oklahoma even after she moved to California. I was born and raised…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I was raised in Georgia and came of age in Bama. Summer’s are for fishin’, fryin’ okra, and makin’ tomato sandwiches. Come winter, I’m cussin’ the cold with a glass of bourbon. My wife makes damn fine apple butter jelly, which I hand out to just about…

As for being a bonafide Southerner, I was born and raised in Atlanta, Georgia and have lived on the panhandle of Florida (aka the culturally southern part of Florida) and in North Carolina in my adulthood. Summers on the Mountain Town I. Sneaking Out Behind Grandma’s Sis & I trail…