Category: Fiction

Southern Legitimacy Statement: My Daddy, who was born and raised in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina, taught me the finger lickin’ pleasures of Sunday breakfast of biscuits and gravy, and, oh, yes, GRITS.

Southern Legitimacy Statement: These are names of my relatives: Clem, Lettie, Garlin, Annabelle, Elmer, Cayce, Velma, LV, and Baby Doll. Dear Mule readers take note: every Spring needs a baseball story and this year, Ms. Sasso has given us a superb one. Read on!

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I grew up on a catfish and rice farm in eastern Arkansas. I must admit, I will take biscuits and gravy over grits any day, though.

As for my southern legitimacy: sweet tea. Once, when visiting family in Mocksville, North Carolina, I drank so much during the week that I had something akin to the sugar DT's when I got back north. Snapple can not compare.

Celia is southern. She knows it, we know it... and Mule readers of our previous 10 years of literary excellence know she's southern.

As for Southern Legitimacy: I couldn't possibly be more Southern. Paw-Paw is a cotton farmer, Aunt Jean's favorite phrase is "for cryin' in the cow butter!", and the little old ladies in the grocery store used to run up and touch my head so they wouldn't give me "ojo." If the preacher's sermon went long, he'd apologize for holding up dinner. "Kudzu," "The Lockhorns," and "Tumbleweeds" were all staples in the morning paper where I grew up, though I've never seen mention of any of them elsewhere until now. I left home, but it's shaped me, and most of what I write is about the love/hate relationship I have with my Southern past.

From the summer of 1989 to the summer of 2001 I lived in South Carolina. Before moving there I had not heard of the Gullah language and many other things. For the first eight years that I lived there, I read regional histories, old letters, diaries, cookbooks, etc., and took notes. Then I spent the next two years arranging the notes. The result was my Sisters Grimke Book of Days, which was published by Oasis Books (England) in 2003.

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I’m John Calvin Hughes, son of a son of a preacher chased out of Mississippi for plucking the flock. I’m a southern (if I spell it southren you’ll get it, right?) boy who moved south and found himself surrounded by Yankees. I’m in Orlando. There's not a hill in sight and the restaurants that specialize in “Real Southern Cooking” put sugar in the cornbread. I'm making my own red eye gravy

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I now live in Panama City Beach, Florida and have been living here since 2005. There was also a six year spell here in the 80’s. I was born in NYC, grew up in New Jersey and have lived in NYC, NY State, New Mexico, Maryland, and England, and my first book of poems, One Day Tells its Tale to Another was published in Ireland. Please excuse me for including that last bit but I couldn’t help myself. ...This is a fiction submission, originally written for a Surreal South anthology and although they kindly told me it did not make it to the book, it did make it to the later stages of decision-making. Ahem.

SLS: Meg Stivison did indeed move from Brooklyn to North Carolina when her handsome Southern boyfriend proposed, but as far as she knows, he is not actually a changeling.

Southern Legitimacy Statement: My family cookbook has recipes for fried chicken, fried venison and fried squirrel. (As to the latter entrée, submitted by my Uncle Toodler, he notes that Aunt Fay “says she would just as soon eat a cat.”) Note: Ms Shearer has allowed that she will give out family recipes, upon request.

Southern Legitimacy Statement: Alan Watkins was born, raised, and still lives in the Raleigh, NC area. Generally, his writings end up as short films, but recently he has decided to delve into the written word after being intrigued by several anthologies of horror related short stories. As a Southern Baptist, there are generally subtle religious aspects in most of his stories.

Southern Legitimacy Statement: Son of the Blackbelt. Lover of good bourbon & better storytelling.

Southern Legitimacy Statement: Them folks up there in St. Louis prolly think that Johnny Cash is a pay toilet but we know how the cows eat the cabbage down here in Ironton.