Southern Legitimacy Statement: We’re so southern, we visit family and friends, outside, ten feet apart, on our big old front porch. We wash our hands, we wear masks, and we are always socially distant. It’s hard not to hug, it hurts not to pat someone on the back but by…

Why do we read? Neil Gaiman says we read fiction because it can show you a different world. One essential “function of fiction in human life” he says, lies in “its ability to introduce us to different versions of the world by envisioning alternate possibilities for the way things are.”…

*Interesting to note how many “southern online literary journals” have echoed our original premise. We’ve been here since 1996, so we can truly claim to the be first to put the south online. Welcome to our Mule.  Valerie

We’ve got fiction, essays, poetry, creative non-fiction. Wow, the Mule’s plate is certainly full this month. Twenty-four years ago, when I first started publishing the Mule, formatting was one page at a time, about an hour a page. Now the Mule has a “back-end” of managed WordPress, via GoDaddy whose…

Well, we’re all in this together, aren’t we folks? Spend a little time away from the humdrum here on the Mule and read your way into some alternate reality. If you’re reading the Mule for the first or the fiftieth time, we welcome you to our little corner of the…

The first of the year kinda’ sprung up on us. We’re behind but we’ll get January up here by Saturday at the latest. Good stuff coming your way! Yall have a happy week.

William Walsh Fly fishing in Times Square The seventh book from William Walsh is an award-winning collection of poems, Fly Fishing in Times Square, where he recalls the past in order to discover meaning in the present and future. From Červená Barva Press in Boston, the Editor Prize   Fly Fishing…

September’s got some great writing, y’all. Get your fill of August now and get ready for next month! (of course, August’s not going anywhere, the Mule remains available each month, it’s not like we delete past issues or anything, duh) We think the combination of essays, memoirs, poetry and flash…

We’re publishing 20 essays, memoirs, short stories, poetry collections … got it going on in August. Pay attention to our Southern Legitimacy Statements each month. They sure do make the Dead Mule sing. We’ve got some swell ones in August. Welcome to the Mule. Enjoy your visit. We’re so very…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I was born in Rome, GA, and raised in Trion, Pennville, and Summerville, GA. After many years as a road musician and earning three degrees–A.S., B.A., M.A., I taught English in three colleges, two of them in Georgia, after returning to my roots. I now live and…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I was born in Rome, GA, and raised in Trion, Pennville, and Summerville, GA. After many years as a road musician and earning three degrees–A.S., B.A., M.A., I taught English in three colleges, two of them in Georgia, after returning to my roots. I now live and…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I was born in Rome, GA, and raised in Trion, Pennville, and Summerville, GA. After many years as a road musician and earning three degrees–A.S., B.A., M.A., I taught English in three colleges, two of them in Georgia, after returning to my roots. I now live and…

SOUTHERN LEGACY STATEMENT You can move here from somewhere else. That’s fine. Southern folks are supposed to be friendly and open. We may even wave at you passing by. We do get a little testy where you start telling us, “Well, that’s not how we did it in Syracuse.” Of…

… the May Mule publication schedule is pushed back to May 15th. Hang in there, dear ones, if your writing doesn’t appear on the first, it will be online soon. Thank you for your patience. All things come to those who wait. Patience is a virtue. Valerie

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I was born in Rome, GA, and raised in Trion, Pennville, and Summerville, GA After many years as a road musician and earning three degrees–A.S., B.A., M.A., I taught English in three colleges, two of them in Georgia, after returning to my roots. I now live and…

I was born in Rome, GA, and raised in Trion, Pennville, and Summerville, GA After many years as a road musician and earning three degrees–A.S., B.A., M.A., I taught English in three colleges, two of them in Georgia, after returning to my roots. I now live and write in a…

Photos this month feature the work of W Goodwin.* W Goodwin is a biologist, writer and digital artist. W gravitates toward nature, animals and people, sometimes in that order. W’s been a journalist long enough to write hundreds of articles for newspapers, magazines, blogs and websites. W’s photography has won…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I was raised in a mill village in North Carolina. My parents worked at the Burlington Cotton Mill. Every spring a leathery old black man drove up to our mill house on a buckboard, unhitched a mule and used him to plow a garden space about half…

The photographs used in this month’s Mule are from the Library of Congress Dust Bowl archives. Dorthea Lange photographs. Aren’t they mesmerizing? I think they’re incredible slices of Americana. Thanks for reading … good stuff this month! Valerie MacEwan

We’re starting out 2019 early with a new format style on the Dead Mule. January is going to be a bit tough to get online but we’ll do it! If you notice any changes that “don’t look or work right” please let us know on our Facebook page. We’ve been…

Due to flooding from Hurricane Florence, we must direct our attention elsewhere (from the Dead Mule School of Southern Literature) for a few weeks. October is finally online. What a mess everywhere. It’s about clean dup now — so very sorry for the inconvenience. Eastern NC is really a mess….

The September issue of the Dead Mule School of Southern Literature will be available by September 3, 2018. We might get it online sooner but we wanted yall to know we’re running behind this month. We’ll feature writing by: Victoria J. Ashford, Maggie Hess, Donna Walker-Nixon, Brian Frazier, Elodie Pritchartt,…

Visited the WayBack Machine on Archives.org and found this from 2002. We’d just begun rebuilding the Dead Mule. The Mule’s been revived three times in the last 22 years. She always rises from the dead, somehow. Lots of databases, lots of writers. Thought this list of past writers might be…

June is soon to be busting out all over and no where more fun than here on the Mule. We’ve got essays! We’ve got poetry! We’ve got your flash fiction and your long fiction, even some great memoirs. There’s just no excuse, nothing to stop you from sitting here and…