Melissa A. Morgan :: Fine Folks ::
Southern Legitimacy Statement: I was raised south of the Mason-Dixon line and east of the Mississippi River. I was raised on yes, ma’am and no, sir. I was raised on lightening bugs and white lightning. I was raised on grits...
Basil McQuade :: Telling Stories/Immaculate Sadness ::
Southern Legitimacy Statement: I’m southern in the stepson way. I glean from trips and family and stories– and I understand the pieces, if not the whole picture. I know just enough about anything to be seemingly proficient in conversation. It’s...
Florence Nash :: Vidalias ::
Southern Legitimacy Statement: I was born and raised in an Eastern North Carolina tobacco town with 6 stoplights and a lot more churches and a whole lot more kin, if you go by the generous Southern interpretation of the term....
Karen Lozinski :: Directions Defy Horizons ::
Here’s my Southern Legitimacy Statement: Is geographic location enough in this instance…? I guess for me, it’s going to have to suffice. I’m from generations of hardcore New Yorkers. The city of my birth, most of my education, and my...
Karsen Thompson :: The Fracture of My Shadow ::
Southern Legitimacy Statement: I hope this story touches you guys just like it did with me as I wrote it down in my grandmother’s old rustic house in Georgia’s humid state. I remember crying and eating her delicious sweet potato...
Sam Barbee :: “A Dead-On Toss”, “Generous Gods” and “Tiny Dancers”
Southern Legitimacy Statement: I was born and given away at birth; raised and educated; married and divorced; defiled and defined, and churched, in North Carolina. Southern writers such as Flanner O’Conner and James Dickey molded my fiction and poetry. As...
Katy Goforth :: All Women Marry Down and Other Fatherly Advice ::
Southern Legitimacy Statement Drinking out of an outdoor hose and running to the house in time to catch the opening song to my mama’s stories sums up my childhood. My roots are in South Carolina, but since meeting my spouse...
S. C. Davis :: The Infinite Wisdom of Moss ::
Southern Legitimacy Statement: I’ve lived in Walker County, Alabama my entire life. Our main exports are coal, tornadoes, and The Old Testament. I’ve seen ghosts in barbecue restaurants and preachers in strip joints. I own a painting which depicts Bear...
Jane Blanchard :: pluff mud ::
Southern Legitimacy Statement: Native to Virginia and long-resident in Georgia, I’m as Southern as Southern can be. (Let’s not talk about the seven-year stretch in New Jersey.) A prominent Mid-Western poet once told me during a workshop, “I could listen...
Carol Anne Perini :: Ancestral Stars ::
Southern Legitimacy Statement: My maiden name is Totten. My ancestor, Joseph Gilbert Totten was the Chief Civil Engineer who built the Civil War-era Fort Totten as part of the Defenses of Washington, D.C. Though not a true Southerner, his legacy...
Paul Colby :: Declaration of Independence ::
Southern Legitimacy Statement: I’ve lived in the former confederacy most of my life. I was born in Texas, grew up in Virginia, and now live on a two-acre spread in Wake County, North Carolina, half-covered in pine trees and bordered...
Jan Jolly :: The Tofurkey Type ::
My Southern Legitimacy Statement: I was born in the Landmark community in Arkansas (not big enough to be called a “town,” mind you) down the road from Singley Dairy. When we had to move to town, my mother tried to...
Alan May :: The Boy and the Monster ::
Southern Legitimacy Statement: I grew up in Central Heights in northwest Alabama, and I’ve lived in Tuscaloosa and Knoxville. I have never been outside of the south for more than a few days at a stretch. I was 25 before...
Jolie Day :: Summer Walk 2008 ::
Southern Legitimacy Statement: from a college town as a bona fide townie, I grew up in Carrboro, North Carolina, and if you know, you know it’s different from Chapel Hill. The long disputed border is a burrito restaurant and a...
Marsha Hawkins :: I Could Make That For You ::
Southern Legitimacy Statement: My twang bounces off the walls anywhere above the gnat line of Georgia and especially in Richmond, Virginia, where I have settled for the past 14 years, constantly explaining to people that I was born and grew...
Poetry
Essays
