Southern Legitimacy Statement: I was born in LaRochelle, France, to parents who were serving in the US Army. My dad was from Alabama, and my mom was from Columbus, Mississippi, where we settled when my dad retired from the military. Columbus — if you didn’t already know it — was…

My Southern Legitimacy Statement: We’ll stop right up here in just a little bit and get us a biscuit. All Things Watermelon I am a southerner, but I have to add not in all things, just where certain comfort foods and family are concerned. (In fact, when I tell people…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: By way of Africa, my people come from rice fields, tobacco, moonshine, and North Carolina oppressive sweat and heat. One of my great great grandmothers I am told was a 12 years young slave who was sold away in 1861 from her family to another part in…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: My people hail from Tennessee, and I grew up in my grandpa’s kitchen, with a shotgun in the corner and a bowl of reused flour where he made catheads from scratch. When the Dead One Fell From Me I had a miscarriage three days before my thirty-third…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: Jeremy Tavares is a poet and writer of gritty fiction. He lives with his wife and son in Austin, Texas. Salvation is Scarier than Damnation Religion was scary in Middle Mississippi. It was a thing to be feared. There were dark forces slithering around in between the…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: Florida is in me and has never left me, though I have left Florida. In Florida I rode the yellow school bus, drove my first car, played guitar in a punk rock band and kissed my first kiss. I swam in sinkholes and drank by rivers and…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I have lived in the South for 4 generations. I went to college and lived in Chapel Hill for 5 years. This was considered “north”. I did come North and have been here now for decades. I still have dreams about the mashes and my soul longs…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: Born in Richmond, VA, I’ve made it my forever home. My paternal grandpa was a waterman on the Chesapeake Bay, and to this day, I’m a seafood snob. I married an ex-Amishman to whom all things Southern have to be carefully explained. He doesn’t hold chairs for…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: Having moved out of the South for the first time in my life, The Dead Mule has been instrumental in alleviating homesickness. It’s been a great reminder of why I consider the South home. As far as a Southern Legitimacy Statement, it’s hard to know where to…

Southern legitimacy statement: My parents dragged me away from the home I loved in Louisville, to put down roots in the frigid Midwest. My time residing in Louisville, the home of my earliest memories, was well spent though. When I wasn’t watching workers pick grapes from the field across the…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I grew up in Missouri and moved to Georgia almost fifty years ago as a VISTA (Volunteers in Service to America) volunteer. After over three decades of service, I retired from Georgia state government. Would They Do It Again? From 1964 to 1968, a handful of Black…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I have almost always lived in the South (Southern Maryland, Southern India, Southern Florida, and Southern California). Give me an afternoon under live oak trees dripping with swaying Spanish moss, sweet tea, and a good book, and I’ll be happy. Humidity? Bring it on. It’s just part…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: You’ll know I’m from the South when you hear my drawl, or smell my Meemaw’s peach cobbler bubbling in the oven. Born and raised in Texas, I share with all those who call these steamy lands home a history as much told as untold, as painful as…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: “Stop bein’ ugly or I’ll paint your back porch red.” Jerked from the reverence of a funeral graveside prayer because the fire ants have crawled into your sandals, driving nails into your feet. Sitting on the porch swing, watching the heat lightning while listening to Christmas music…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I’ve lived in West Tennessee all of my life, and though I believe myself to be the most polished of my siblings, I still have quite a bit of residue on me. My six brothers and I were the proof that things are not boring in rural…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: My first cousin initially said it and has reminded me often, “You know where your roots are.” His words were in response to my living and teaching in northern China for two years. I was born in north Louisiana and ultimately moved to central Louisiana. Oddly, I…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: You may be from around here if you’ve ever loved how cool June mornings are until about eight, but didn’t mind the afternoon heat as long as there was some shade, a breeze, and a glass of ice tea. You may be from around here if you’ve…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I frequently think about how the South and it’s defining characteristics, good and bad, exist in other cultures and, more recently, have reflected on that in my writing while carefully cultivating timely opportunities for drinking Coke and eating BBQ. The Butteri and The Batture There are aspects…

My Southern Legitimacy Statement: Born and raised in Southern California and smart enough to marry a man from Abilene, Texas who has fostered my love of hush puppies, collard greens, and, DUH, barbecue! The Wrong Job at the Right Time “We’re really going to need your magic wand for this…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I’m a lifelong Atlantan who’s been known to sit, unfazed, in my hot car in the summertime to finish listening to a song. Even in the city, the notable features of my block are two churches and a Waffle House. My first novel, The Gallery of Unfinished…

Southern legitimacy statement: I’ve spent nearly my whole life in the South, though I’ve never really thought of myself as a Southerner. I studied at Thomas Jefferson’s University. Completed my graduate studies in the shadow of the chemical plants of Southwestern Louisiana. Taught at a university with a tiger mascot…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: Born in Missouri and transplanted to the Appalachian Mountains of North Carolina before I turned two, my southern upbringing deeply influenced who I presently am (read: being the only atheist kids in the Bible Belt was quite unpleasant at the time, but helped to sculpt my brothers…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: A chance meeting after a war, a love affair that lasted until their deaths… I am a half-breed: product of a woman from Acadia Parish and a teacher from way up north, nearly to Arkansas, where I was born on a frosty morning. I chose my institution…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: Married to a woman from Ocilla, GA. Eat Shit, Tickfaw HE’D BEEN READY for hours – suitcases packed and arranged in the trunk; peanut butter sandwiches wrapped, coffee brewed; the girls’ belongings, not including Big Teddy, wedged in the back – yet still his wife and daughters…