Anne Anthony: Music As Her Refuge (Fiction)
Southern Legitimacy Statement Anne Anthony lives in North Carolina though when she engages you in conversation it’s clear she was born above the Mason-Dixon Line. Still, if she’s reading you her stories, sometimes her voice slides into the gentle sway...
Neva Bryan: Sparks and Vinegar (Short Fiction)
Southern Legitimacy Statement: Kentucky-born and Virginia-raised, I am the daughter and granddaughter of coal miners. As a child, I played in the woods every summer day, caught lightning bugs in jars at night, and made lunch out of saltine crackers slathered...
Christopher Allen: Father-Son Activity (short fiction)
My Southern Legitimacy Statement: I was raised “in town,” which means Nashville, but my mother’s family comes from Bell Buckle, which is near Hatchet Holler where my mother was born (she says “borned”) in a shack that has probably succumbed...
Ted Harrison: Pop and Water Oaks (short fiction)
MY SOUTHERN LEGITIMACY STATEMENT I am a born and bred North Carolinian. My life has included having my pictured made with Al “Lash” LaRue at the State Theatre in Salisbury. I met Andy Griffith and even took his picture. My younger...
Rick Hoffman: Be Good for Goodness’ Sake (short fiction)
Southern Legitimacy Statement: I am a transplanted person. I live in the Northeast, but I was raised in Mississippi and Louisiana, and I visit the South Carolina Lowcountry twice a year. I cannot quit the South of my childhood. It...
Carrie Martin: Tuesday Afternoon (short fiction)
Southern Legitimacy Statement: I was born and raised in TN, but have made the Southern circuit. I currently reside in Greenville, SC. Tuesday Afternoon “We gotta git the house ready for visitors,” she stated, matter of factly. The screen door...
Cormac McShane: Ruin (short fiction)
Southern Legitimacy Statement: My Southern-ness is complex, and split between pride and shame. My mother is from Virginia, and a descendant of the Prestons who came over in the early eighteenth-century. Smithfield Plantation near Blacksburg is an ancestral home of...
Cecil Geary: Bicycle Paths (short fiction)
Southern Legitimacy Statement: I was raised in central Kentucky, southern Indiana, and southern California. My relatives first came to Kentucky from Virginia in 1800. I usually write humorous stories about the folks I knew in Kentucky. The attached story is...
Josh Patrick Sheridan: Pride (a short story)
Southern Legitimacy Statement: I’m born and raised in Lewisburg, a small West Virginia town a heavy stone’s throw from the southern border with Virginia. I went to elementary school with a drawl and to high school with an accent, but...
Nelson Lowhim: The Artist
Southern Legitimacy Statement: Was in the south when in the Army. Good times. Or not. Here’s a piece about the scars some carry along with their long and sordid history. The Artist I once knew a painter, artist type, his face...
Mamie Pound: Man in Blue, a short story
Southern Legitimacy Statement: Mamie Pound lives in Columbus, Georgia. Man in Blue She was in the garden, a hoe in one hand, a cup of coffee in the other, a wool sweater over her nightgown. “Excuse me, ma’am,” he said,...
Joey Holland: When a Ten Cent Cigar Cost a Dime and a Quaalude Cost Three Bucks
Southern Legitimacy Statement: My family never hid our crazy folks; they generally sat on the front porch and enjoyed the breeze just like the family who weren’t crazy. Come to think of it, we all had some crazy mixed in...
Alan Good: Paris (When I Die) a short story
Southern Legitimacy Statement: I grew up in southwest Missouri. My parents were divorced, and they both lived in trailers. That’s not so much a Southern thing as an economic one. I never really thought of myself as Southern, even though I...