Southern Legitimacy Statement: I was born in Galveston, TX, and raised in Houston after my family evacuated following Hurricane Carla. I am educated at the University of Texas, Texas State University, and Texas Tech. That’s a whole bunch of southern bona fides. But here’s more. I grew and still enjoy…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: We were a prototypical southern nuclear family. My Papaw came up in the Great Smokey Mountains, near Farner Tennessee and Cherokee North Carolina. When he was nine, he lost track of the time one summer evening, squirrel hunting up on the mountain, and he avoided a sound…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: My hometown straddles the bleeding northern edge of the South. The Mason-Dixon line runs directly through it; on the map, that line is a rut carved jagged in the earth. Step to one side, you’re in the North. Step to the other, you’re in the South. Directly…

I have no clue what information is pertinent, so without further ado: K. J. Kovacs – Southern Legitimacy Statement : I had a bona fide sign from the King. Make that signs, plural. I’m tempted not to tell you about the signs, because maybe you don’t deserve to know. I…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: Mark Mulholland is not from the South and has never been there. In fact Mark isn’t from the USA at all, or indeed Canada or the UK or even Australia or anywhere snazzy like that. Mark, through no fault of his own, was born and raised in…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: Married to a woman from Ocilla, GA, who dated a lobbyist for the Tennessee Medical Association, who collected fascinating (and actual) causes of death, hence the title. Went to Bed Fine, Woke Up Dead SHE’D GONE TO bed in the Johnson City Stopover – that much was…

My Southern Legitimacy Statement: I was born and grew up in the pines and blackwater creeks of central Louisiana. In the Army I had the privilege to spend some time in Tennessee and Kentucky, but the only bluegrass band I ever got to see was in a desert in Egypt…

My Southern Legitimacy Statement: I moved to a small farm on Virginia’s Eastern Shore in 2004 on which I put a conservation easement. The community of woods, pond, fields and salt marsh will be forever protected from the ravages of development and industrialized chicken farming flooding in from the north….

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I hail from the Deep South–Hattiesburg, Mississippi. While I now live overseas in Bangkok, Thailand, I make sure to incorporate Southern living on a daily basis. I cook biscuits often, read to my daughter in my best Southern accent, and encourage my colleagues to say “y’all.” It’s…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: Dad’s from New Orleans, my mother has roots in North Carolina. I grew up straddling the line between Southern Maryland and Washington D.C. I’ve currently been living in Michigan for 2 years. What I miss most is the warm weather and crab legs! Pigeons Pigeons walk when…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I was ten years old when I first visited a hospital. I had been chasing a black snake through an open corn field where someone had left a pitchfork. One of the tines tore through my foot and sent me screaming toward the house. The snake got…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: Clinton Myers is a native of Tracy City, Tennessee currently living in Nashville. An attorney by trade, this marks his first foray into flash fiction. The Road to Yonder “One time I was heading around this turn right up here and just on the other side of…

STATEMENT OF LEGITIMACY I still have not gotten over that ‘Shake ‘N Bake’ television commercial from the 70s where that girl uses the world’s worse Southern accent to ask her mother if she can pitch in on the biscuit making. “Cunn ah hep?!” If it were up to me, somebody…

Southern Legitimacy Statement:I believe that in a previous life I was from the Deep South. Not just south of the Mason-Dixon line, but as far south as you can go before wading into the Gulf. The voices in my head have accents, soft and slow. I’m comfortable in heat and…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: My SLS is like a country song. At 17, I moved to Texas, got married, moved to New York, got divorced and now I think about my exes and Texas, but not always. Sometimes I think about pecan pie or ponder what became of the girl I…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I’ve known hidden creeks, deep fishing pools and smooth stones under my wet feet. I’ve fallen asleep while watching the morning sun rise only to wake up to watch it set over pine-swollen mountains. Ash In the early morning Ryan Jackson found himself in a tearful sprint…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I’m new to the south. I like it here, but I feel like everywhere I go I’m ‘appraised.’ It’s interesting. When I was at Cornell in CNY, and someone from NC passed by, I didn’t think: Huh, You’re from the South. Everyone I meet (down here) uses…

Southern Legitimacy Statement I grew up chasing off guinea fowls and picking wild strawberries from the backyard. Cupping lightning bugs in my palm, eating pinto beans and cornbread, and licking honeysuckles in my bare feet. Calling and being called “honey, sugar, dumplin’, pumpkin, sweetie pie.” Saying, “I reckon we’ll meet…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I attended East Carolina U., Virginia Tech., and NC State U. In 1976, I married a wonderful guy from North Carolina, and we have lived in North Carolina ever since. Once I could pronounce “y’all” as a one syllable word and eat grits, I considered myself a…

SOUTHERN LEGITIMACY STATEMENT I’ve lived in Louisiana for a handful of years, and I’m now working on a PhD in English (Rhetoric and Composition) at LSU. In my time here, I’ve tried many different gas stations’ boudin (they always have the BEST boudin. My favorite: Nonc Kev’s in Rayne); done…

Southern Literary Statement: I was born in South Georgia and grew up in North Florida twenty miles from the Georgia State Line. My childhood revolved around church twice on Sundays and a prayer meeting on Wednesday nights. We’d make a 10-mile trip into town for groceries on Saturday afternoons. Memories…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: Adrienne Burris grew up in the purple shag-carpeted room her mother grew up in, the third bedroom of a small brick ranch sandwiched between a cow pasture and a tobacco farm. Her grandfather picked her up from high school in his pickup truck, and they listened to Walter…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: Mark Currey is a singer-songwriter whose roots run through Ft. Worth, Texas and the deep pine forests of southeast Arkansas. Inspired by roots rock, classic country and Americana music as well as southern gothic literature, Mark is a story teller searching for a honest expression of his…

My Southern Legitimacy Statement: My Southern Legitimacy starts with the breath, the first time I inhaled Faulkner and Tennessee Williams—the rhythms and sounds of their language sliding under my skin, pulsating through my veins. It’s amplified when I pick up my blues harp and play along with the only kind…