Category: Fiction

Southern Legitimacy Statement: My friend Sam told if I’m tellin the truth I can wander around a little but if I’m puttin out a stretcher I better stick to the straight and narrow and repeat it exact. So I’m stickin...

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I was born in the stench of the Gulf Coast refineries, raised in trailerhomes and white trash apartment complexes. My daddy got the calling to be a preacher but my momma didn’t get the calling to be...

Southern Legitimacy Statement: My grandfather spent his twilight years drinking cognac and reliving the War. Initially Papa Jules had been assigned submarine duty. He was transferred to a desk job in Brussels after his submarine commander realized Papa spoke a...

Southern Legitimacy Statement: Dawn Corrigan lives in the Congressional district of Matt Gaetz. Help us, Obi-Wan Kenobi. Tomato Soup It arrived in May. Faye had tried to get some in April, but she’d lingered so long over the details of...

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I was born in Illinois against my will and fled that state for a better future in Texas. When family ask if I’ll ever return there, I can’t stop laughing at them, not with them. Why would...

Southern Legitimacy Statement: Born and grew up in Mink Shoals, West Virginia. I love being in places with neat town names not found in the L.A. Times—most recently: Big Stick, Blue Jay 6, and Odd. Brown beans and cornbread might...

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I am legitimately southern. Both sides of my family go back many generations in North Carolina. I live (and write) in Wilmington. Broken “It’s broken,” Mama said, as though Jim couldn’t see the handlebars for himself. “I...

Southern Legitimacy Statement: Sunday mornings at our house it’s grits, red eye gravy, country ham, eggs over easy and buttermilk biscuits. (Please don’t tell my doctor.) I’ve walked 3 miles to a one room schoolhouse taught by an 18-year old...