Category: Essays

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I was engaged in Mississippi; did not work out. I was married in Jacksonville, Florida; did not work out, except for a great son. I was married in Wrightsville Beach; we are coming up on our 26th...

Southern Legitimacy Statement: A self taught artist, sculptor and writer from the Appalachians of eastern Kentucky. My writings transcribe life among the hills and hollers of Kentucky, the people and their culture. From My Mountains, An Epilogue I was planted...

Southern Legitimacy Statement: A quarter-century ago, I rode my motorcycle south and bought a pickup truck. It and I are now covered in rust. Imperfect I wandered Manhattan’s East Side that night with my nerdy left-back classmate Aaron Rabitcheff, wishing...

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. Mimi Mimi I met Mimi when I was...

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I grew up in the southwestern corner of Virginia and Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. I currently reside in Wilmington, North Carolina. My father’s businesses were always headquartered in southwest Virginia. A Brief Memoir of an East Coast...

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I live in South Scottsdale, which is south of Old Town Scottsdale, so it’s not the city you think of when you think of Scottsdale, AZ. I’m from a place called St. Joseph, Missouri, which is south...

My Southern Legitimacy Statement: I grew up in southwest Florida where crocodiles living in the golf course lake routinely consumed small dogs whole. Cultural Debts I hadn’t thought of Jimmy Buffett for twenty years when, in the span of a...

Southern Legitimacy Statement: My earliest memories were of living in a small coal-mining “company house” near Shinnston West Virginia, and of using the two-holer out back. The aunt who raised me eventually moved the family to a small enclave of...

Southern Legitimacy Statement: As to Southern Legitimacy, in my day job as an archaeologist, I have dug holes and recovered history from throughout the Southeast. I have investigated the defining site types of the region, including whiskey stills, kilns where...

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I grew up in New York with dyed-in-the wool Southern parents. They arrived in the city during The Depression determined “to make it,” as my father said, and they did. But they brought along with them the...

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I was born and raised in the South and left it vowing never to return. Never say never. I came back. Sure I don’t like grits or football, but there’s something about the South that gets into your...

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I am as Southern as grits, biscuits, and gravy, having the double blessing of being brought into this world in the great state of Georgia (Atlanta to be precise) and having my raising in the Volunteer State...

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I am a Mississippian, born in the Northern Hills and currently living in the flatlands of the Delta. I was fortunate enough to grow up in a rural community where I learned the value of family, faith,...