Leo Coffey :: Gutted ::
Southern Legitimacy Statement: I was born and raised in a small community in Western North Carolina. I come from a long line of trade workers, musicians, and storytellers. The South…
Category: Fiction
Susan Pepper Robbins :: Fred Speaks at Last ::
My Southern Legitimacy Statement is this: I have lived in rural Virginia for 75 years and seen the public schools integrated, the white flight schools close and some Confederate Statues…
P. A. Knight :: La-Z-Boy ::
Southern Legitimacy Statement: I was born in Richmond, Virginia and still live there. My momma was from Franklin County and grew up on bootleg money. My daddy’s from Johnson City,…
Kenneth M. Kapp :: Bragging Rights ::
Southern Legitimacy Statement: I’ve been in the south. Got shot at running rural streets in Raleigh, NC; ran free on the levees in New Orleans. Love Faulkner. Parents & in-laws…
Edward Michael Supranowicz :: A Hundred years From Now ::
Legit: I actually like grits and okra and somewhat understand the everyday despair in Faulkner. A Hundred years From Now There had been 10 pandemics since the first. There also…
June Sylvester Saraceno :: Charming Bed and Breakfast in English Countryside ::
I was born and raised in rural North Carolina. I left the South in my mid-twenties, but the South never left me. Now on the other side of the country–out…
Darla Hitchcock :: I Was Either the Chaperone or the Comic Relief ::
Southern Legitimacy Statement: I grew up Southern. Southern California, that is, though my cousins moved to North Carolina (still south!) when we were young teens. So, I’ve spent a significant…
Dwight Hinson :: You Don’t Meet Many Poets Down at the Slaughterhouse Anymore ::
Southern Legitimacy Statement: I’ve heard it both ways. I was born at the Boyce Clinic in Hohenwald Tennessee, or at my grandparents’ house in Napier in Lewis County, a defunct…
James Ryer :: Sweet Home Alabama ::
Southern Legitimacy Statement: I was raised during the late 1940s to the early 1960s in Central Florida, not usually considered a Deep South state, but still not without some of…
Ian Mueller :: Unseeing ::
Southern Legitimacy Statement: Yeah, I was born in St. Louis, Missouri, but I moved to Charlotte, North Carolina, when I was four. My Midwestern cousins used to tease me about…
Susan Mannix :: The Nun’s Lounge ::
Southern Legitimacy Statement: The most legit thing I can say is I’m not originally from the south and don’t pretend to be. I’ve lived [barely] below the Mason-Dixon Line most…
Gary Phillips :: Mule and Garden Days Be Praised ::
Southern Legitimacy Statement: I’m a 69-year old writer who remembers when he was a 13-year old writer, as Octavia Butler was wont to say. Tossed between the Cherokee foothills of…
Katy Goforth :: All Women Marry Down and Other Fatherly Advice ::
Southern Legitimacy Statement Drinking out of an outdoor hose and running to the house in time to catch the opening song to my mama’s stories sums up my childhood. My…
S. C. Davis :: The Infinite Wisdom of Moss ::
Southern Legitimacy Statement: I’ve lived in Walker County, Alabama my entire life. Our main exports are coal, tornadoes, and The Old Testament. I’ve seen ghosts in barbecue restaurants and preachers…
Paul Colby :: Declaration of Independence ::
Southern Legitimacy Statement: I’ve lived in the former confederacy most of my life. I was born in Texas, grew up in Virginia, and now live on a two-acre spread in…
Jan Jolly :: The Tofurkey Type ::
My Southern Legitimacy Statement: I was born in the Landmark community in Arkansas (not big enough to be called a “town,” mind you) down the road from Singley Dairy. When…
Malcolm Glass :: The Panties ::
Southern Legitimacy Statement: As I previously done said last time I submitted, I grew up in Florida. And that certainly doesn’t count. Surrounded by rich Yankees for twenty-some-odd years, I…
Trevor Lancon :: They Shall Take Up Serpents ::
Southern Legitimacy Statement: One time in Chicago I had to ask some teenager working in a booth at a parking garage whether I could get back in with my ticket…
Patrick Key :: Lucid Memories ::
Southern Legitimacy Statement: I was born in California, but I moved to Louisiana when I was four and grew up in one of the few dry parishes in the state.…
Hendrik Kühn :: Last Talk About AI ::
Southern Legitimacy Statement: I’m localized in the north, always was, born and shaped by it, but I drift south. It should come as no surprise that my wife is from…
Mia Eaker :: Jack Was in Atlanta ::
Southern Legitimacy Statement: I was born and raised in Pumpkin Center aka Punkin’ Center, North Carolina. I’ve drank moonshine, gathered fresh eggs, fallen into cow manure, and been shocked by…