“Pretty, Black, Shiny Shoes” by Dean Stracener
Southern Legitimacy Statement: I was born in 1934 in Tuscaloosa County, Alabama in a house that didn't have indoor plumbing. I was only seven-years-old when we moved to Mobile, AL. Except for a few months in Fla. and a few weeks in Saint Louis, I have always lived in Alabama. I always loved to write, even when I was a kid. I was married for eleven years and divorced, married for 32 years and widowed. I am quite well and happy.
Deb Jellett “Southerness”
I used to say I was from the South, but not "of" it. I think I just had to find the right kind of Southerness.
Deb Jellett “Daddy Elvis”
southern legitimacy statement: I was born and raised in Mobile, Alabama, but never learned to be a cute or sweet purdy girl, so I moved to England where surliness is appreciated.
Always Clap for the Band by Clint Tyra
Southern Legitimacy Statement: I was born in Alabama, grew up in Georgia, went to school in Mississippi, lived in Nashville and do my fishing in South Carolina. I've spent a lot of time on the grounds Faulkner's Rowan Oak and on the highway around Larry Browns farm. I currently live a street over from Carson McCullers' house. I don't know how much more legitimate I can be than that.
Niles Riddick “Dog War”
Southern Legitimacy Statement: I've lived in the South my whole life. I haven't wanted to. I've wanted to live in more exotic places like Paris or London or even in the United States, places like San Francisco or New York. But I don't want to move. I just fantasize about it. I grew up in Georgia, lived in Tennessee for 15 years, and then moved back to Georgia.
Valerie MacEwan: Matthew Rose and “The Letters”
Recasting the throw-aways and detritus, the overheard and misspelled, the artist has fashioned a large expository drama that serves as fragmented window into our collective Zeitgeist. Sex, love, death, politics, aesthetics and the muddled semiotics of our age all find a place in this body of work and beckon the viewer to read, decipher and unravel. The pieces in The Letters resonate with an enigmatic poetic presence. The result is a significant body of work by an important American artist...
Tim Bullard: Saving the Depot
Tim Bullard, 1999 ... reporting at its finest. We're sorry that we can no longer find the original photos accompanying the piece.
A. J. Tierney: Stuck Like This Forever
Southern Legitimacy Statement: An “Okie from Muskogee” I am one of very few women who have been crowned both Miss Azalea Festival and Miss Indian Summer. I was convinced for years that Colonel Sanders was my grandfather since my grandmother worked so many hours at Kentucky Fried Chicken. I tagged along curling up under her desk with my Snoopy dog that she bought me with S&H Green Stamp books. I’m still stunned there are people in the world who don’t know about paper shell pecans. You haven’t truly lived until you you’ve watched your grandma fry potatoes, okra, pork chops, and chicken in a cast iron skillet in bacon fat that’s been out on the counter all day.
Jeanne Lupton: Candy
Southern Legitimacy Statement
I live in the place of my yearning, Northern California, but I can't get Virginia out of miy mind, 250-year-old Hopewell Friends Meeting House on a hill with the Blue Ridge in view, homecoming picnics there with a hundred cousins, some aunts named Ms. Pigeon, all eating fried chicken, deviled eggs, potato salad, watermelon, chocolate cake, staying cool in the breeze, calling me Thee. Dear Grandma laughing, "Everybody's crazy but me and Thee, and sometimes I wonder about Thee."
Phillip Thompson: A Novel “Deep Blood”
Review copies arrive on a semi-daily basis here on Brown St. This month brought quite a few volumes of teen fiction and those were passed on to willing recipients. Then there were the two novels that were especially readable and...
An Interview with Dayne Sherman
by Thomas Scott McKenzie *from Summer 2007 Dayne Sherman is writer both dedicated and determined. A former high-school dropout, he began writing fiction in the spring of 1996. In a little more than three years, he has racked up 13...
“Grandpa! Grandpa!” by Jeanne Lupton
southern legitimacy statement:
Since coming to Northern California ten years ago from a lifetime in Virginia where my father's Quaker family had lived sinnce around 1720, i can see my time there more clearly as material and have enjoyed working with memory to write about it. Hope you enjoy.
**We encouraged Jeanne to find her voice. The little voice tucked away in her heart. Well, dammit, she did. How old are you when you remember? Six? Four? You will find this touching and brilliant. Odds are, you too will start remembering and when you do, write us a piece of your history. You can be six or four... or eighty.
Six Short Works by Joyce Rushing “Dancing With Dementia”
Joyce has never published a darn thing in this world. Never thought she was a writer but knew she had some stories to tell. So she figured out how to submit with our Submittable process and we loved what we read. If you think this whole submission process is too complex, take heart. If she can do it -- so can you. You will hear more from Joyce in October in our True Stories from the South issue. These six works are Prose Poems but they are more because of the quiet dignity of their truth. They will be published in both the poetry and essay sections.
Southern Legitimacy Statement:
I've been married to a Mississippi boy for 54 years and lived in Mississippi for 50 years. I'm responsible for bringing 16 southern souls into the world... so far. That alone ought to be good enough for anybody.
Poetry
Essays
