Southern Legitimacy Statement: I grew up in North Carolina, within six miles of the land where my ancestor settled in the 1700s. Lacking frequent snow fall as children, my siblings, cousins, and I improvised. We used dried horse manure in our game, guard the fort. We lobbed these so-called horse apples…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I’ve lived in Oklahoma almost my whole life. People who know nothing sometimes call Oklahoma the “Midwest,” but we say y’all here and eat gravy and know the importance of good manners, so every good Okie is a Southerner. Also, my momma made us promise that when she…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: Born in Chicago with maternal grandparents, who went back to the drawing board for childcare, probably saved me from a stint in Joliet. Mom was a “wild-child” in the late 1930’s and early 1940’s. Nana solved that by hiring two strong-willed black nannies from the South. Miss Roberta…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I’m an ex-pat from Seattle and still miss the mind-your-own-business culture of my home and never, ever get used to waving to strangers or to tucking in my polo. But there is an honor and a history and a courtesy in the South that is noble and heartwarming….

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I’m a debutant, a beachcomber, and a native of South Carolina. The place of my most vivid memories was my grandmother’s farm — shucking corn, snapping beans, and hand-churning peach ice cream. Daddy’s Home It’s 5:00 and today, like every day, Mom is in the kitchen cooking dinner….

Southern Legitimacy Statement: Now retired, I devoted the past thirty-six years teaching at Wabash College in Crawfordsville, Indiana. But I was born in Johnston County, raised in Burlington, responded to frequent calls from Emerald Isle, the lower island of the Outer Banks, to relax, and have known North Carolina as…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I was born by the river — the Mississippi River, that is, and in its oldest city, Natchez. I and my family are Southern Gothic with the humidity to prove it. We’ve got suicides, antebellum homes, wealth, poverty, slaves, violence, heartbreak, snakes, armadillos, dogs, cats and enough guilt…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: In 2004, after living in Savannah, Georgia, for three years, a stray dog wandered into my front yard. I guided him to the back yard by his blue collar. My other half printed out “Found Dog” posters and tacked them onto neighborhood street signs. No one called….

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I grew up in a small town in South Carolina among the rivers and pines and sandy dirt roads. My mother, a French Huguenot from Charleston, SC, taught me that we have the ocean in our blood and pluff mud in our souls. The water with which…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: Sela wrote about herself instead of writing a SLS but we forgive her. Read the following essay and you’ll see why. “I am a ninth grade student at Mamaroneck High School. I am fourteen years old, and love sing, dance, and spend time with my family. I…

Southern legitimacy statement: I was born and raised in Florida and am still living here, two miles from Georgia. My dad and grandparents were also native Floridians, and I can’t find a maternal or paternal ancestor who was born or lived north of the Mason-Dixon line. Mom was born in southern…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: My grandmother raised me on cornbread and southern stories, the anecdotes of her girlhood among the cotton rows. The Wool-Gatherer I buy the strawberries grown and shipped from Watsonville because my grandmother’s hands once picked them there. Nestled safely in the center most part of California, this…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: My southern heritage includes being born in Guntersville, AL and currently working/residing in Auburn, AL (since 2011). What Remains Home, a space both real and imagined. You can quantify it – measure it in square feet, pace its dimly lit halls, wrap your fingers around its golden doorknobs,…

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. I most certainly do not miss the snow, or the cold. To Tell or Not to Tell After…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: There’s nothing dirty in that dictum, “Pinch the tail and suck the head.” Like other South Louisiana creatures, I’ve got a hard exoskeleton and a spicy interior that—although it takes some elbow grease to access—will leave you licking your lips and slappin’ ya mama. The Boot at the…

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 of Tennessee. I have been educated here and have worked…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I have lived all over the hill country in Texas and am from New Orleans, LA so most of my work is about these environments and the characters I’ve encountered there. Pipe Creek, Texas Dust flew behind the pickup truck like a cape in the wind. Noses…

Southern Legitimacy Statement:  “The navigator tells his story and the explorer his, and the historian, and the planter, the naturalist, the pilot and the soldier. The river is in all of them. But if you try to use them piecemeal, you find a patternless puzzle.” -Hodding Carter The West Yellowstone…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: Southern Legitimacy Statement: When I tell people where I’m from, I have to make sure I pronounce New Orleans in a way they will understand it, not the way I really say it. I live in Idaho now and run a rehab after years of drug addiction and…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: My name is Scarlett. I was born in California , but my family moved us at an early age. I have lived in North Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, and Virginia, but I proudly grew up in south Louisiana in Cajun country. I currently live in New York, but…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: Let’s get something straight, right off. I don’t drink sweet tea. I’ve been dieting my entire life. What would be the point? I can’t stand grits. I have issues with lots of “white” foods including mayonnaise, Duke’s or any other. I’m not a Southern Baptist. In fact,…

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. I most certainly do not miss the snow, or the cold. Mrs. Zeeman In September of 1977, the…

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 of Tennessee. I have been educated here and have worked…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: While standing up in a rowboat, I slapped six-foot alligator gars on the head with my oar, walked over a rattlesnake so sound asleep in the sun that it didn’t wake up, turned over rocks to see if I could find that black spider my Gramp warned me…