Darcy Lee :: Peach and Proud ::
Southern Legitimacy Statement: I grew up in South Georgia, where our “snow” grows from the ground, and the only thing sweeter than the tea is the hospitality of folks. Only two words needed to sum up my first eighteen years...
Ken Wheaton :: Mother of the Year ::
Southern Legitimacy Statement: One of my first instances of writing for the public was telling the college cafeteria that their “gumbo” was so wrong that it was an affront to Southern Louisiana and all its people. I was a veritable...
Brandon Yu :: Blessings in Disguise ::
Southern Legitimacy Statement: Some people think Florida doesn’t count as the South, but I beg to differ. The heat, Spanish moss, and help-yourself attitude of everyone here in Tampa– many of whom hail from Alabama or Georgia– have made this...
Juan Cruz :: Not Dark Yet ::
Southern Legitimacy Statement: I was born in Bogotá, Colombia. I moved to the US when I was in my twenties. I lived in South Carolina for almost a decade. I earned a PhD in Comparative Literature from the University of...
Wess Everett :: Eyes That Cast Stones ::
Southern legitmacy statement: I was born in Fort Payne, Alabama in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains. I’ve lived in Alabama my entire life, and I’ve struggled to find anywhere that I like better. However, like many other southerners, I...
Avi Ben-Zeev :: Troubled Waters ::
Southern legitimacy statement: Okay, so I’m not from The South, and even though I sound American, whatever that means, I was born and raised in the Southern Levant (AKA Palestine). But The South called one day, specifically, the psychology department...
Andrew Keith :: Grudge ::
Southern Legitimacy Statement: Raised by rednecks and roughnecks, I reckon no one holds a grudge like a southerner. I’m from Johnson City, Tennessee – yes, the one from “Wagon Wheel” and I sure hope I’m the only ten-you-see. Happy to...
Nancy Werking Poling :: Oscar’s Bane ::
Southern Legitimacy Statement: My regional identity is confused. Though born in Indiana, I grew up in Orlando before Disney and attended Robert E. Lee Junior High, where we flew a Confederate flag. After living in the Chicago area for almost...
Courtney McEunn :: Sour ::
Southern Legitimacy Statement: I grew up in the swampy craplands they call central Florida. I ran around the sand roads barefoot, swam in the giant oil puddles they called lakes, went tubing and canoeing alongside alligators and snakes on more...
Lee Wright :: Southern Sunday Snow ::
Southern Legitimacy Statement: Growing up in northwest Georgia, very near Chattanooga, right on the Tennessee state line, my parents would drag me to a small independent Pentecostal church every Sunday morning as well as every Sunday and Wednesday night. It...
Anna Davis-Abel :: Southern Sweet Tea ::
Southern legitimacy statement– The South is inextricable from me as my bones. I was born in Mississippi to two families that traced their lineages to poor antebellum share croppers and then grew up in Alabama. I left the south for...
Narya Deckard :: “Thinking About Kentucky and the Wolfpen Poems,” “The River Yearning,” and “Cicadas” ::
Southern Legitimacy Statement: Appalachia, just south of the Mason Dixon, That invisible line the weight of a dead mule. Ramps, trillium, and mayapples Showed me where I ended And West Virginia began. Appalachia, a few hundred miles south Of that...
April 2024. The South is blooming.
Well, it came in like a lamb and kinda’ stayed that way, except for a couple really crappy rain days. Now it’s April. The Yellowing has begun in full force. Pockets of killer pollen everywhere. Meanwhile, back on the ranch...
Poetry
Essays
