Here’s my Southern Legitimacy Statement: I was born in the Volunteer State, lived my first year and a half in the Magnolia State, and then moved to LA (Lower Alabama, that is). There I spent twelve formative years in a remote outpost on the fringes of the modern world where…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I trust you consider South Florida, where this piece of flash fiction is set, part of the South. I do. I am an established Cuban American writer with poetry, fiction, nonfiction and even a cookbook. Alligator Sam The lovers named the gator Sam, after Samuel Grossman who…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: Hope all is well. I’m writing to you from south North America, bottom cousin to our neighbors (Canada) to the north. I don’t know if that legitimizes my submission, but I’m going out on a limb just to see. Something Like Language rainalways makesme thinkof languageas lessor…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I left Virginia more than 30 years ago to settle eventually in Seattle: “As far away from us as you can get!” my folks would say. Though I’m happily settled in the Pacific Northwest, I reminisce about humid summer days at the Chesapeake Bay where my parents…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I used to read a lot. I am old now and write. Spittin We were standing there spittin, me-n-Tom-n Joey-n-my older brother John and other brother we were spitting at a rock. Jeez we were bored, Joey spit at the rock, a pretty good spit that missed…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I like the soft, lazy, sweet summer heat. Act One (Always) I woke up and the air seemed to be pulling away from me. My lips were dry, and my lungs were burning. The early sunlight seemed artificial, something manufactured for effect, not for nurturing the earth….

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I was born in Florida but travelled the Southern U.S. quite extensively as a child before my family settled down in Kentucky at age 11. I have deep family roots from the hills of Kentucky to the sugar sands of Florida and everywhere in between. Orange Juice…

Southern Statement: I am not a native Southerner, but I can tell you that the eight years I lived in eastern North Carolina gave me what I needed to become one. Someone told me I could tell a story. Someone else put a guitar in my hand. Someone handed me…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I was born north of the Mason-Dixon line, but with a Southern spirit. Now I’m happily settled where Southern red cedar bedecked in Spanish moss shares the landscape with live oaks and cabbage palms—Florida,the land of flowers, where it’s harder to stop something from growing than to…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: My later years bring me full-circle, back to near the one-stoplight East Texas town where I grew up. Farms and small communities, with their Dairy Queens, antique stores, and half- boarded-up Main Streets, seem to have a stronger literary pull than the concrete jungles of some of…

My Southern Legitimacy Statement I moved to a small farm on Virginia’s Eastern Shore in 2004 on which I put a conservation easement. The community of woods, pond, fields and salt marsh will be forever protected from the ravages of development and industrialized chicken farming flooding in from the north….

Southern legitimacy statement: I remember being 10-years old and sneaking out of my 15-year-old cousin’s house to “borrow” my aunt’s car for a late night feed at a White Castle in Florida. The Note Squatting over the pit in the rain you have one thought: Do. Not. Lose. Your. Balance. …

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I grew up on a farm in Virginia and, although I haven’t lived in the South since college, still hold a fondness for all things made with Duke’s Mayonnaise and anything with a little extra salt like VA Ham and Hubs Peanuts.  I also spent a summer…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I attended public schools in Selma (AL), Ocean Springs (MS), Goldsboro (NC), Niceville (FL) and Benton (AR), and I can sing all three verses of the Georgia Tech fight song even though I only lasted three quarters there. I also dated a Buck Swamp Kicking Clogger for…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I live a little over eight miles south of the Mason-Dixon Line in a state carved out of glaciers and war. I only eat Mister Bee’s potato chips. Tracing Inert Gasses on West Virginia Day Truth is, I don’t really knowwhat xenon is, but some nightsfull up…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I lived in Kentucky in the 1970s and taught American literature and creative writing at Transylvania University in Lexington, where I frequented the literary scene and gave poetry readings. One of my novels, Devil Dancer, is set in Lexington, another novel, Blacksnake’s Path, has a chapter set…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I live in a rural Virginia county where Robert E. Lee spent the night on his way to Appomattox. I make cornbread and fry okra, and live two miles from where Thomas Jefferson designed a home for a poor cousin, a younger son. I want statues removed,…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I have lived in Virginia for nearly 30 years, but that’s not my SLS. I grew up in south Minneapolis, playing hockey outdoors every winter day unless it snowed too hard, so that’s not my SLS. A long time ago, I married an Alabama girl. At least…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I was raised in Dallas Texas but went out on my on at fourteen; joined the army at 15 and was in jail by 17. I learned a lot while in jail. I learned how to slip out of hand-cuffs and slide down a bunch of tied…

Not a southern legitimacy statement, but a statement nonetheless: I was born and raised in Olsztyn, Poland. I studied history at UWM in Olsztyn and currently live and write in Gdansk. born It would take two flights of narrow stairs below the street.The room filled slowly until obstinate gravity suffocated…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I was born and raised in Michigan, which is south of Canada. When I was 12 years old I was stranded in Kentucky for a week, which is south of Cincinnati. I am a freelance writer and have a degree in History and Political Science from Central…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: My family has lived in the south for around 400 years. Something Simple The days are getting longer and longer, a deputy marshal got a shave afterkilling a man on the Western. I want something simple like whenmy grandfather sliced open awatermelon with a big knife onhis…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: Texas born. Texas raised. Anyone not born in Texas is a Yankee in my book. I think that about covers it. Surely Not the Likeness What’s the easiest way to make a city boy holler? Turn off his air conditioner. A city boy can’t stand having his…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: A native Atlantan (not many of those) with deep matriarchal roots in Savannah, I eventually ended up enrolling at The University of the South in Sewanee, TN, where I now teach a course on Tennessee Williams. I can drawl if I have to, but I’ve found it…