Category: Fiction

“For those who hope in the World to Come, Mr. Mark, Arthur Conan Doyle was correct when he wrote, “We cannot command our love, but we can command our actions.”

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.

I was born and raised in the Appalachian South, specifically east Tennessee. Thus, I have Scotch-Irish blood pulsing through my veins, and some German... and a little Cherokee, I was told by my sweet granny. I hope she was right. I also lived for a time in the Deep South, twice. Once in McComb, Mississippi, and once in Yazoo City, Mississippi. I believe my geographical dalliances as a child bode well for me in my literary pursuits.

With respect to a Southern Legitimacy Statement, I would like to state that although I have never been in the American South, I have deep admiration for the determined and pioneering individuality that marks the people of that region. I could indeed think of the protagonist of my story as exhibiting some of that individuality in her own way.

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