Southern Legitimacy Statement: I was born in New Orleans and spent the first ten years of my life in southern Louisiana. Since I was ten, I’ve lived in Kentucky. My daddy is from Arkansas; my mama born in Mississippi. I grew up on boats and in gardens and saying ma’am…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: Growing up in South Jersey with West Virginia roots brings a person towards the equator to seek understanding. While in South Carolina I decided I want to be a writer and I moved to Florida to find salvation for my mind, relaxation for my body, and to…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I am a Southerner though for sure. I was raised in Florida by a dad whose family crept down from Georgia and a mom whose ancestors moseyed down from North Carolina. My grandaddy said you were all right if you came from North Carolina but South Carolina,…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I go to school in Alabama, and every Friday the cafeteria serves mashed potatoes, mac and cheese, collard greens, corn bread, and fried chicken. Don’t worry, there is no shortage of y’alls, ain’ts, and down yonders in my life. Take a Step. A Small One. You wait…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: Honeysuckles, Chopped Pork BBQ and Muscadine Wine I remember walking from my grand mama’s house with my brother. We’d walkthrough the lane that was in truth a two way, one way street. I mean the signs said one way but cars went both ways and nobody seemed…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: Born in San Diego, raised in Western PA, during my fourteenth year of existence, my parents decided to relocate the family to South Carolina. How I hated the humidity, the drawling language, and politeness. Almost two decades have passed. Could’ve moved back up north on multiple occasions,…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: My family never hid our crazy folks; they generally sat on the front porch and enjoyed the breeze just like the family who weren’t crazy. Come to think of it, we all had some crazy mixed in amongst our sanity. My mother cooked red-eye gravy every time…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: Howard is a retired materials management and manufacturing professional with over forty years in the military and manufacturing arenas. He spent time at sixty plus posts while in the military and has traveled to all fifty states (working in twenty-two of them). Howard earned a Masters from…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I grew up in a small farming town in Northeast Arkansas a mere seven miles south of the Missouri border. As a child, I would marvel at how quickly the accents changed once crossing the state line. I currently reside in Arkansas after a brief stint living…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I may have grown up a Yankee, but I moved to Austin, Texas at 6 years old and have almost forgotten that I used to find it weird to say “y’all.” In Which Nothing Happens I was in the 5th grade when he called me a whore….

Southern Legitimacy Statement:
My yard dogs are polite and only bark when strangers walking by neglect them and forget to speak to them. The voices of people I’ve never met will waft up to the second story windows of my home, “Hello there, everything okay today? How ya’ doing? Sweet pups. Nice pups … “

Southern Legitimacy Statement: One hundred percent Southern. Born and bred in deep southern Georgia below the gnat line, and currently living in the humid swamps of north-central Florida. If I were a death row inmate my request for a last meal would consist of fried chicken livers, harmony grits. pickled…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: Alex Pickens grew up in Southern Appalachia and has been studying and writing satire for decades, though he is seeking help. His comedy has been widely published and his screenplays have even earned him invitations to Hollywood. In his spare time he reads the Classics, fingerpicks the…

Southern 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 tube factory and a retired grandfather who, after a heart…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: You can’t go much further south than living in Miami Beach. Although most would disqualify my city as The South, I promise I can fish, cook collard greens, and sing all the lyrics to Southern rap songs better than any true Southerner. I also say “Yes, ma’am,”…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: Though I live in Massachusetts now, I was born and raised in Houston, and part of my heart will always be in Texas. I know some folks don’t call Texas the South, but I always have, seeing how my mom always had a can of bacon grease…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: Honestly, I don’t really have a Southern Legitimacy Statement except to say my grandfather was born in Texas. He was orphaned at 3 (father was knifed in a barroom on stilts, mother died shortly after from a broken heart, although that’s hard to imagine), left home at…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: This work focuses on my relationship with my father and meat, and it takes place in the polarized city: Houston, Texas. Houston is my birth place as well as my homeland. I remained in the South for my undergraduate education at Elon University in North Carolina. Eating…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: Although I was born at home in the hills of Kentucky like a true hillbilly, I did not belong. My parents were back-to-the-land hippies from New York and Massachusetts – art students looking to make the world a better place by farming it without pesticides – and…

Southern Legitimacy Statement:  Drive east from Southern California and you’ll eventually run out of road. That’s when I knew I was in “the South,” where I could disappear, and the real me could burst forth! Wallpapering bathrooms for a housing contractor. Working in a Timex factory. Thinking of stories that…

I am a professional dirt bag and failed Independent Fundamentalist Baptist who grew up in the oil fields of west Texas. I am also poet, writer, educator, translator, and activist. My work has been published in English and Spanish and has appeared in ZYZZYVA, Catapult, Cimarron Review, Willow Springs, Guernica,…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: Get used to the fact that when you move to South Carolina you will hear these every day: “Yes Sir, Yes Ma’am,” and “what church do you go to?” When you walk into a restaurant or fast food place and ask for “regular tea please,” understand that…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: My momma and papa, both teachers, brought me into this world in a small town in the ancient land of Bessarabia, and they always wanted me to be a…teacher! So, I became one, which got me in so much trouble during the Soviet time, that I eventually…

Southern legitimacy statement T. Jeremy Smith grew up on a dairy and tobacco farm in South Central Kentucky. After spending much of his childhood running from his older brother, Jeremy spent 20 years as an adult running from the degenerative retinal disease that continues to steal his eyesight. Jeremy now…