Landon Whitley :: Three Poems ::
SOUTHERN LEGITIMACY STATMENT: Landon Whitley was born in North Carolina in 1996, just like The Dead Mule. Over twenty seven years, he saw Union County turn from the home of duck-tape bandaids to the county with the highest average income...
P S Bryant :: Three Poems ::
Southern Legitimacy Statement: I grew up in Florence, SC, right next to where the United States Air Force dropped a dud atomic bomb due to negligence. I saw the crater when I was 6. It was hauntingly large. The neighborhood...
Carl Harris :: Three Poems ::
Southern Legitimacy Statement:I am a queer black southern writer who focuses on the liminal spaces of identities that are often classed as other. I was born and raised in Union, South Carolina. This region is often noted as the foothills...
Jack J. B. Hutchens :: Rodeo | How to Rope a Cow | The Last Friday Night ::
As far as a Southern Legitimacy Statement, I’m not sure how to begin. I’m a red-legged Jayhawker abolitionist Kansan. As a descendent (in Spirit) of John Brown, I never thought of myself as Northern or Southern, but in the In-Between....
Joe Bisicchia :: Three Very Fine Poems ::
Southern Legitimacy Statement, it is what it is. Growing up in South Philly, the rest of the world was a world away. North Philly was as far as Quebec. But then I went to North Philly. Met the good people,...
Jefferson Fortner :: A Honky-Tonk Epiphany | My Grandfather’s Garden | Wine, Women, and Song ::
Southern Legitimacy Statement: I am a lifelong resident of North Carolina, as were my parents, and my grandparents, and great-grandparents, reaching back to well before the American Revolution. It must be admitted, however, that there were a few immigrants from...
Biff Rushton :: Where 42 Crosses The Sabine | George Daniel ::
Southern Legitimacy Statement: In early 1835 my fourth great grandfather, John Nolan and his brother James, fled the Tithe War in Ireland and arrived upon the fringes of revolution in Texas. A little over a year later, Texas had become...
Jessica Sampley :: The Cowcumber Poem | South Florida: the lover driving alone sees Indian River fruit | At the Mill Creek Dam, Carbon Hill, Alabama—the Night Jay Almost Died ::
Southern Legitimacy Statement: I open my mouth and the South comes out. I grew up listening to my mawmaw’s stories and trying to come to terms with the beauty, complexities, and dualities of growing up in rural Alabama, and I...
William Heath :: Preacher Knox | Jail, No Bail | Tales from Liberty ::
Southern Literature: For five years I taught American literature and creative writing at Transylvania University in Lexington, Kentucky, the favorite school of the antebellum aristocracy in the South; I am the author of an award-winning novel about the civil rights...
Richard Collins :: Cement Buddha and The Past Is Not Past ::
Southern Legitimacy Statement My first two wives (it didn’t work out; it didn’t work out) were from Southern California, where I grew up, but the third (the charm) is from Louisiana. Her Cajun father – who spoke no English until...
Marsha Owens :: Boarded Up ::
Southern Legitimacy Statement: Born in Richmond, VA, I’ve made it my forever home. My paternal grandpa was a waterman on the Chesapeake Bay, and to this day, I’m a seafood snob. I married an ex-Amishman to whom all things Southern...
Thomas Orr :: The Snake : Genesis : Virginia Tiger Moth ::
Southern Legitimacy Statement: I’ve spent most of my life halfway between the concrete North and green South of Virginia: wandering about the woods, swimming in dark lakes, catfishing, and drinking whiskey over card tables to Son House and Lightnin’ Hopkins....
Chris Epenshade :: Roadkill ::
Southern Legitimacy Statement, I am proud to have had seven pieces published by the Dead Mule School. I was raised in North Carolina, and I went to college and grad school in Virginia, North Carolina, and Florida. When I lived...