Category: Essays

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,...

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...

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...

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...

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,...

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: 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...

Southern Legitimacy Statement: My Southern Legitimacy is in evidence when I tell you that yesterday I wore a dress and stockings to attend a ladies’ tea party where we drank champagne all afternoon. Most of the ladies are aging exotic dancers,...

Southern Legitimacy Statement: David Tromblay lived in a single wide trailer on a piece of leased land somewhere on the Fond du Lac Reservation until his parents split up. Before earning a BA in English and Writing from UW-Superior, he served...

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I was born and raised in Texas. Some people try to say Texas is more Southwest than South. Truth is, we have our own peculiar ways, like every state. My ggg-grandfather was hanged by the Confederates for...