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 I built my house twenty years ago. The Tao of…

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 person. I am not there, in Iceland. I am 4,852…

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 appreciation for the Southern United States having a food background…

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 and identity. I live and work in Savannah, Georgia. How…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I have always lived in the South, having been raised in North Carolina, and now living south of the north pole. Tame I had already drunk a couple of beers when Theresa pointed to a sign that read, Lion Enclosure, and suggested, “Let’s go take some pictures.” We dropped…

My SLS: I was born and raised in Alabama by my herpetologist dad, my artist mom, and a host of relatives and babysitters. After an eight year stint in Massachusetts, the setting of this tale, I brought my Yankee husband back to Alabama where we raised our own children. Note…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: Jon Sokol is a writer and a professional forester. He lives in Hartwell, Georgia with his wife, Karen, and their cat, Layla. Originally from South Carolina, Jon is a graduate of both Clemson University (BS-Forestry) and Georgia Southern (MBA) and is currently enrolled in the Etowah Valley…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I am legitimately from the South, even though people from further South may debate the legitimacy of the Tidewater area and accent. My father, like me, was raised in Virginia, and this story is a creative retelling of one of the many stories my even more Southern…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: After studying at Southern Illinois University, I left to follow all roads South and South East from Alabama to Texas, and finally, Tucson. I hang with people who believe in biscuits and gravy the way others believe in the purity of worship. Crank up the Allman Brothers,…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I’m an Appalachian woman, born and bred. I grew up in West Virginia (in a middle class, blue-collar, working-class family). My parents were not college educated but knew they wanted their children to be and stressed achievement and work-ethic to all of their children, always. I write…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I grew up in rural North Carolina. Though I drink my tea with a bit less sugar these days, the soles of my feet are still tough from going barefoot. I never sit in grass or weeds for fear of chiggers. I look strangers in the eyes…

SOUTHERN LEGITIMACY STATEMENT: I grew up crossing the Mississippi River each weekend to go four-wheeling, fishing, and running around barefoot. From Quincy, IL to Maywood, Missouri (20 short back-road minutes from Hannibal, MO, home of Mark Twain), my dad and I would return to his country roots. I’d watch dad…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I had two mules by the time I was 18 — old Jake and Sara Jane. I learn to plow the rich black dirt fields of East Texas at 14. That’s when I learned “A farting mule can’t pull and a pulling mule can’t fart”. My dad…

And here is my Southern Legitimacy Statement: I was born in Jackson, TN, and grew up in Johnson City, TN, living there from the time I was two until I was twenty-four. I’ve lived in Mississippi and Georgia, but most of my adult life has been in or around Chattanooga,…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I am a Gulf-Coast Southerner, through and through. I was born in New Orleans, Louisiana. For the first half of my life, I lived in uptown until Hurricane Katrina. After swimming out of my home and all of that jazz, I moved around the country until I…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I speak with a muddled southern accent. I lived in the north all my life, but my father’s family comes from the south, and on their trek north they didn’t bring money, brains, better ideas, or even sanity with them; nothing at all except the cumulative degenerative…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I am a Kentucky boy who is born and raised in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains that is telling a story about going to the Dollar Store. Plus Fried Taters touch my soul. A Trip to the Dollar Store I did not have a Granny that…

Southern Legitimacy Statement | My Dad was born at the Hotel Dieu in New Orleans, and none of his family had ever ventured far past the Mississippi River before he did. Though born in Texas, I grew up in Belle Chasse, LA. (the boot of the boot of Louisiana) from…

Southern Legitimacy Statement — I was born, and have lived, and have not left for more than 25 days, an area bound to the east by I-65 in Birmingham and to the west by Lurleen B. Wallace Blvd in Tuscaloosa, and bounded no more than ten miles to the north…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I was raised dirt poor on a poor dirt farm in eastern North Carolina. I have written since I was small and have always been fascinated by people’s motivations. I somehow was able to get a good education and eventually tenure at a major university. I am…

The Witch, The Egg, and the Cure Imagine that you have asthma. You are ten years old. Your life just started yet every day feels like a step closer to the end. You try to take a deep breath but doing so makes you cough for five minutes. Snacks and…

Southern Legitimacy statement(s): 1) I’m from further South than most Southerners, 2) Dang redbugs! Southerisms from the Spanish Moss Belt I live in Alachua, Florida. Not quite the Florida most people think of when they envision South Beach, The Orlando Magic, or Tampa International Airport. I am in live oak…

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. Nudge Apa The Hungarian word for grandfather is nagyapa.  My great-grandfather died a mere two days prior to…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: This piece details a memory I share with my little sister while visiting my mother’s best friend, who was born and raised in the South. She ran her household as if she still lived in Oklahoma even after she moved to California. I was born and raised…