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…

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, and had the shoes to prove it. It was delightful….

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 in the U.S. Armed Forces for ten years, deploying to…

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 being a Yankee sympathizer in Gainesville, TX during the Civil…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: Growing up in the South, I developed a love for stories. Some of these included the travel accounts of my cousins in the military, and the gossip of girls as we worked alongside the women ‘barning tobacco’ in central North Carolina. Starting in fifth grade, I took…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: My husband, a fellow aspiring writer, and I married in May and live a quit life in a single-wide in the woods. I was born and raised in a small Arkansas community, without a Dollar General or Sonic to be considered a town. I’ve always lived 20 minutes…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: William C. Crawford is a writer and photographer based in Winston-Salem, NC. He has lived in North Carolina since 1962. He was a combat photojournalist in Vietnam. That led him into social work where he often became a voice for the powerless in the Tar Heel State. Down…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I grew up in Columbia South Carolina where I spent my summers at Lake Wateree swimming with the Cottonmouths. I attended the College of Charleston in Charleston, South Carolina where I would swim the beaches of Sullivan’s Island and Folly Beach and once punched a baby Sand Shark…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: My name is Jay Edge and I’ve been drawing & writing ever since I remember. The one thing I remember doing before drawing and telling stories was roaming the woods behind my grandparent’s home. I’d sew a sheath for my rusty machete, head out the back door to…

My Southern Legitimacy Statement: I was born in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. The home of the mighty Crimson Tide of football lore. My mother made sure I was born in the South and growing up my grandmother would call me her little “Alabama Belle”. Opportunities It was a beautiful sunshiny day.  And…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I was raised in South Carolina. I make the best slow cook grits with Daufuskie Shrimp and I know football to be the best game ever created by man. I Grew Up I grew up in South Carolina catching crawdads in the creek in the backyard, and watching…

Southern Legitimacy Statement:  Born in Maine but raised in Water Valley, Mississippi, the deep south is the only place I’ll ever understand, and I still don’t know the first thing about it. “Stairways” I take the elevator to the funeral instead of the stairs, which is pretty unusual for me….

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I was born in Charlotte NC during WWII, lived on a failing farm in Iredell County NC, and was taken back to Charlotte. Currently, I operate an organic farm in Chatham County NC and write a weekly column for the Durham Farmers’ Market Wednesday Newsletter entitled “Missives from…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: From the 7th grade through college, I lived in the North Carolina Piedmont. I worked for 12 years in Atlanta, and eight years in Greensboro, NC. I respond positively to a cold Cheerwine and a side of hush puppies. One Man Casting: Fishing For Blues Blues run in schools.  When…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: Like Missouri, a state considered both midwestern and southern, much of my work revolves around my clashing identities. Having lived in Alaska, Michigan, and Ohio, moving to Missouri to pursue an MFA in creative nonfiction afforded me space and distance to see these collisions more clearly. Here,…

Thoughts on Beauty, Bologna, and Lewis Grizzard Anyone who knows me understands there are very few books or articles I haven’t read.  Amongst all the scholarly and literary reading I have done, I’ll even admit to enjoying the occasional trashy novel or magazine—who doesn’t?  I mean, I am the proud…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I lived in New Orleans for several years when I was a kid, on the campus of Tulane. I went to the R.M. Lusher School. My address was 51A Macalester Place. I loved it there. Now I live in Woodstock NY. I write memoir most of the time….

Southern Legitimacy Statement: “I was born in Memphis for the sole reason that it had the hospital closest to Earle, Arkansas. My daddy was informed of my birth via telegram, as he had enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps during WWII. As soon as she was able, Mother took me home…

Tricia Boooker’s: “The Place of Peace and Crickets: how adoption, heartache, and love built a family”   is brutal, honest, loving and a masterpiece of a memoir. Booker goes in deep, where most of us would never dare to go, she bares her soul. Adopting three children after the agonizing…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: Aside from spending my growing up years in Mississippi, with the crooked letter crooked letter eye crooked letter crooked letter humpback humpback eye spelling taught me in first grade, I’ve been living in South Carolina my whole adult life. At 62, my psychiatrist says I’m the most…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: My name is Jay Edge and I’ve been drawing & writing ever since I remember. The one thing I remember doing before drawing and telling stories was roaming the woods behind my grandparent’s home. I’d sew a sheath for my rusty machete, head out the back door…

Southern Legitimacy Statement:  As a boy in Bessemer, Alabama, I lived for Mondays for they were new comic book days. I’d head to the Stop and Shop on 4th Avenue in hopes that a new Batman, Detective, Justice League, or World’s Finest would be on the three-sided, rotating comic rack….

Southern Legitimacy Statement: Born in Richmond, VA, I’ve made it my forever home. My paternal grandpa was a waterman on the Chesapeake Bay, and to this day, I’m a seafood snob. I married an ex-Amishman to whom all things Southern have to be carefully explained. He doesn’t hold chairs for…

Southern Legacy Statement: Being raised in the South means you have a certain perspective on things.  (Oh, I’m sure people from other parts of the country feel the same way, but stick with me here.)  I have visited Washington—the state and the District—nice places to be sure, but I am not…