Category: Essays

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I was born in wildly wonderful state of West Virginia and have appreciated being uniquely southern my entire life. From music to food West Virginia is rich with Southern culture. The Books I Never Read 1 I loved...

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I was born in Panola County, Mississippi, (where SEC affiliations are handed out as birthrights) to parents from towns named Tocowa and Blackjack. They decided to split the difference and raise me in a town called Pope...

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I’ve lived in Arkansas over 15 years, so I’m feeling Southern. The Family Mantra My father bawled one night, wailed just like the pansy he said my brother was when he cried. He didn’t punch holes in the...

Southern Legitimacy Statement: Wendy Reed is an Emmy-winning writer and public tv producer, who teaches in the Honors College at the University of Alabama. Her books include Accidental Memoir: How I Killed Someone and Other stories and All Out of...

Southern Legitimacy Statement: “Almost half of my life has been spent in the South. I’ve lived in Boston, Paris, and a few other places as well. I call Austin, TX home now.” Cutie Patootie I fell in love with him the...

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I’ve lived in Virginia for the past seven, going on eight years. My blood and kin are northern, but my pace is a good bit more southerly. *This was originally published in April 2017 and is republished today,...

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I am from Orangeburg, SC and once fell off the open tailgate of a pickup truck because I was standing up when my uncle took off. We were looking for my cousin Mary Ann’s pet cow, Lady...

Southern Legitimacy Statement: Alrighty, then. Native North Carolinian, former bartender / caterer / chef, middle child of a small-town veterinarian and a home economist extraordinaire. Know the heady joy of running behind the mosquito-spray truck on a sticky summer night, and...

And here’s my Southern Legitimacy Statement:  Luisa was born in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. Roll Tide! On her Mother’s side her family has been in Alabama since before Alabama became a state. Her Mother was actually living in Mexico City when she...

My Southern Legitimacy Statement: I was born in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains in Southern Ohio, where driving forty five minutes one way puts you in West Virginia and thirty five minutes the other way puts you in Kentucky....

Southern Legitimacy Statement : Upon graduation from college in 1984, I sweated my way through basic training at Parris Island, South Carolina. After earning the title of U.S. Marine, I was permanently stationed at Marine Corps Air Station – Beaufort,...

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I am from Bristol, Virginia, a city that borders Tennessee and is “A good place to live” (so says a sign on the border). I lived on a 10-acre farm for most of my life, and now I...

Southern Legitimacy Statement: Though Claire Fullerton resides in Southern California, she considers herself a Southern writer. Having been reared in Memphis, she’ll be the first to tell you that you can take the girl out of the South, but never the...