Tom Wade: Essay: Jan 2022
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…
The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature
"No good Southern writing is complete without a dead mule."
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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,…
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,…
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…
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…
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…
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,…
Southern Legitimacy Statement: I’m a 7th generation Georgian born in Atlanta as the 3rd great grandson of a Confederate veteran. I was the first in my line to break a…
Southern Legitamacy Statement I was born and raised in a part of the country not thought of a typically southern. I was raised in Estill County, Kentucky, which lies beside…
Southern Legitimacy Statement: I was born and raised in Spartanburg, S.C. to a resilient Renaissance woman and a long-haul trucker who would talk to everyone who crossed his path about…
Southern Legitimacy Statement: My family yanked me from Virginia and took me to Alabama when I was ten. Then they left me there when I was 18. I married a…
Southern Legitimacy Statement: I was born in the South, raised and educated there, and still choose to live there. From my beginnings and my early perception of the world as…
Southern Legitimacy Statement As a native southerner and recovering Alabamian, I understand that we are definitely NOT living in a “Post-Racial” era. We have never spent enough time repairing the…
Southern Legitimacy Statement: I grew up in the Ohio River Valley, more specifically Southern Indiana, the South of the Midwest. My town bordered Kentucky so we argued about Hoosier and…