Category: Essays

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I grew up in a small farming town in Northeast Arkansas a mere seven miles south of the Missouri border. As a child, I would marvel at how quickly the accents changed once crossing the state line....

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I may have grown up a Yankee, but I moved to Austin, Texas at 6 years old and have almost forgotten that I used to find it weird to say “y’all.” In Which Nothing Happens I was...

Southern Legitimacy Statement: My yard dogs are polite and only bark when strangers walking by neglect them and forget to speak to them. The voices of people I've never met will waft up to the second story windows of my home, "Hello there, everything okay today? How ya' doing? Sweet pups. Nice pups ... "

Southern Legitimacy Statement: One hundred percent Southern. Born and bred in deep southern Georgia below the gnat line, and currently living in the humid swamps of north-central Florida. If I were a death row inmate my request for a last...

Southern Legitimacy Statement: Alex Pickens grew up in Southern Appalachia and has been studying and writing satire for decades, though he is seeking help. His comedy has been widely published and his screenplays have even earned him invitations to Hollywood....

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I am a farm girl who still reaches for her gum boots to go feed the birds. I grew up in the arms of a grandmother who worked 40 hours a week for 36 years in a...

Southern Legitimacy Statement: You can’t go much further south than living in Miami Beach. Although most would disqualify my city as The South, I promise I can fish, cook collard greens, and sing all the lyrics to Southern rap songs...

Southern Legitimacy Statement: Though I live in Massachusetts now, I was born and raised in Houston, and part of my heart will always be in Texas. I know some folks don’t call Texas the South, but I always have, seeing...

Southern Legitimacy Statement: Honestly, I don’t really have a Southern Legitimacy Statement except to say my grandfather was born in Texas. He was orphaned at 3 (father was knifed in a barroom on stilts, mother died shortly after from a...

Southern Legitimacy Statement: This work focuses on my relationship with my father and meat, and it takes place in the polarized city: Houston, Texas. Houston is my birth place as well as my homeland. I remained in the South for...

Southern Legitimacy Statement: Although I was born at home in the hills of Kentucky like a true hillbilly, I did not belong. My parents were back-to-the-land hippies from New York and Massachusetts – art students looking to make the world...

Southern Legitimacy Statement:  Drive east from Southern California and you’ll eventually run out of road. That’s when I knew I was in “the South,” where I could disappear, and the real me could burst forth! Wallpapering bathrooms for a housing...

I am a professional dirt bag and failed Independent Fundamentalist Baptist who grew up in the oil fields of west Texas. I am also poet, writer, educator, translator, and activist. My work has been published in English and Spanish and...