Taylor Shenk :: Everybody Knows Tina ::
Southern Legitimacy Statement: The South is the only place where I’m not called country, but rather more of a city girl. Such twang isn’t found any higher than Virginia, the only place I’ve ever called home. I find my identity...
Kenneth Parsons :: Leo Kotke Turns 80 ::
Leo Kottke plays slide guitar and uses open tunings (chordal tunings) that originated in the Southern U.S., chiefly among black blues guitar players. I was born in Kentucky, and the finger-picking style is common in Nashville, Tennessee (think Chet Atkins),...
Neha Agarwal :: Split ::
Southern Legitimacy Statement: Heat that bears down like warm inland waters, spice that nourishes even as it cuts through, and stories that are passed down as precious family heirlooms. I am not from the American South, but I know a...
Mary Sturgill :: On Becoming an Orphan ::
Southern Legitimacy Statement: Mary Sturgill bleeds Carolina blue. Though her journalism career has carried her across the US, every mile traveled was a winding road leading her back home to the South. After a stint in Southeast TX, Mary made...
Blair Kinsey :: My Friend, the Doorstop ::
Southern Legitimacy Statement: … born and raised in Austin, Texas. After a few years in Memphis, Tennessee, she now calls Austin home again. Here, she works with Austin Bat Refuge, rehabilitating winged creatures on their way further south for winter...
Jordan Hoban :: An Honest Life ::
Southern Legitimacy Statement: [NC resident] for 32 years. From a young age, I attended an Independent Baptist church on the outskirts of Charlotte, NC, and was educated in the church’s Christian school, which influenced my writing by exposing me to...
C. Christine Fair :: The Railroad Tracks ::
Southern Legitimacy Statement: I have lived in Virginia since 2004. I’ve lived here longer than I’ve lived anywhere else. It is my home. I AM a Virginian. The Railroad Tracks Holly and I were thirteen and life was waging a...
Nick Wynn :: No Taste for Chicken and Dumplings ::
Southern Legitimacy Statement:I am a Southerner–born, bred, raised, and hopefully to be buried in the red clay soil of Georgia. I grew up in rural Georgia and experienced the poverty and wealth of a lumber dependent family. From outdoor toilets,...
Andy Betz :: raconter des salades ::
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. raconter des salades I’ve been told no one...
Con Chapman :: My Right Arm ::
Southern Legitimacy Statement: I was raised in Sedalia, Missouri, site of a “skirmish” between Yankee and Rebel forces during the Civil War; while the town had southern sympathizers, I found a Union army cavalry handbook in a stove in the...
Becky Meadows :: Boodoo vs. The Pantyhose ::
Shut hern Legitimacy Statement:I am a farm girl who still reaches for her gum boots to go feed the birds. I grew up in the arms of a grandmother who worked 40 hours a week for 36 years in a...
David VanDevelder :: Her Heroic Final Role in the Fading Persona of So and So ::
Southern Legitimacy Statement: 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...
Poetry
Essays
