James Ryer : Poetry : Dec 2020
My SLS varies with my mood and the moon. Sometimes I think about how race relations and people’s perspectives have and have not changed. Sometimes it’s as simple as what’s on the table for dinner. Sometimes it’s about the overarching...
Sheila Arnold : Fiction : Nov 2020
SOUTHERN LEGITIMACY STATEMENT When we unexpectedly showed up at Grandma’s house on any given Sunday, she would send one of my older brothers into the yard to catch a chicken or two. She was quicker and more efficient at wringing...
Philip Arnold: Essay : Nov 2020
Southern Legitimacy Statement: I was raised in the foothills of North Carolina and have spent the majority of my adult life in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Watauga County, NC. This piece locates its narrative along Brushy Fork Ridge, where...
Elisabetta La Cava : Fiction : Nov 2020
Southern Legitimacy Statement: I am a double immigrant from Italy and Venezuela who became a Texan 25 years ago. On top of that, I am a first-generation college graduate who received a master’s degree in Journalism from the University of...
Nicole Yurcaba : Essay : Nov 2020
Southern Legitimacy Statement: Nicole Yurcaba is a Ukrainian-American poet and essayist who teaches at Bridgewater College in Virginia. Well-Traveled It’s had a long journey, your letter. Today, it arrived nearly six weeks post-maling—at its intended destination, not to its intended...
Lindsay Brown : Essay : Nov 2020
Southern Legitimacy Statement: Dear editors at The Dead Mule, Have I ever told you how much I love the South? Probably not, because we’ve never met. I live all the way up here in Alberta, Canada and have so much...
Claire Massey : Flash Fiction : Nov 2020
SOUTHERN LEGITIMACY STATEMENT: Mississippi birthed me skinny, Louisiana fattened me up, Georgia married me off, Tennessee worked me like a borrowed mule and Florida retired me. My favorite quote is from Confederates in the Attic by Tony Horwitz. ” The...
Christopher J. Ananias : Flash Fiction : Nov 2020
My Southern Legitimacy Statement: We lived up in a holler outside Waynesboro, Tennessee. My dad was a master sergeant in Korea, at 23 years old. They killed everyone else, except Private Simmons, so they put my dad in charge. We...
Strawberry Trellis : Essay/Memoir : Nov 2020
Southern Legitimacy Statement: I have worked jobs that are always considered women’s jobs such as maid, nanny, hostess, daycare facilitator and now as a librarian. I am interested in identities in the south as well as the interconnection between landscape...
Jennifer Schneider : Flash Fiction : Nov 2020
Southern Legitimacy Statement: As a student at one of the South’s finest public universities, I rediscovered my childhood penchant for long conversations, piping hot, locally roasted coffee, and kind souls who always have enough time for tradition. The public transportation...
Erik Peters : Flash Fiction : Nov 2020
Southern Legitimacy Statement: Erik Peters is a teacher with a love of the American south. Whether it is southern comfort -of either the welcoming kind or the sort which warms your throat around a campfire- or country music, the south’s...
Charles Philip Brooks : Fiction : Nov 2020
Southern Legitimacy Statement: I was born in North Carolina and spent more than half my life in the south – variously residing in North Carolina, Virginia, and Georgia. I admire Mark Twain for mighty specific reasons and Allan Gurganus for...
Steve Gerson : flash fiction : Nov 2020
Southern Legitimacy Statement: I was born in Galveston, TX, and raised in Houston after my family evacuated following Hurricane Carla. I am educated at the University of Texas, Texas State University, and Texas Tech. That’s a whole bunch of southern...
Poetry
Essays
