Southern Legitimacy Statement: I live a little over eight miles south of the Mason-Dixon Line in a state carved out of glaciers and war. I only eat Mister Bee’s potato chips. Tracing Inert Gasses on West Virginia Day Truth is, I don’t really knowwhat xenon is, but some nightsfull up…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I lived in Kentucky in the 1970s and taught American literature and creative writing at Transylvania University in Lexington, where I frequented the literary scene and gave poetry readings. One of my novels, Devil Dancer, is set in Lexington, another novel, Blacksnake’s Path, has a chapter set…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I have lived in Virginia for nearly 30 years, but that’s not my SLS. I grew up in south Minneapolis, playing hockey outdoors every winter day unless it snowed too hard, so that’s not my SLS. A long time ago, I married an Alabama girl. At least…

Not a southern legitimacy statement, but a statement nonetheless: I was born and raised in Olsztyn, Poland. I studied history at UWM in Olsztyn and currently live and write in Gdansk. born It would take two flights of narrow stairs below the street.The room filled slowly until obstinate gravity suffocated…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I was born and raised in Michigan, which is south of Canada. When I was 12 years old I was stranded in Kentucky for a week, which is south of Cincinnati. I am a freelance writer and have a degree in History and Political Science from Central…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: My family has lived in the south for around 400 years. Something Simple The days are getting longer and longer, a deputy marshal got a shave afterkilling a man on the Western. I want something simple like whenmy grandfather sliced open awatermelon with a big knife onhis…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: A native Atlantan (not many of those) with deep matriarchal roots in Savannah, I eventually ended up enrolling at The University of the South in Sewanee, TN, where I now teach a course on Tennessee Williams. I can drawl if I have to, but I’ve found it…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: My parents are both Mississippians. My grandfather, Reuben Davis, published two novels about life in the Delta. I grew up in Auburn, Alabama, catching snakes, turtles, lizards, and crawdads, and went to college at the University of the South (Sewanee), where I now teach. I still eye…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I was born in Confederacy’s Capitol Richmond, Virginia in 1960. By the 1970’s my family had moved to Petersburg, Virginia. I metal detected at Battlefield Park near a grown over ditch that was “The Crater.” Every so often some fool in Walnut Hill would put a parrot…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: Coming from Florida, I am no stranger to wild pets. Kat Kitchins in Neptune Beach was notorious for nursing newborn wolves, and I’ve seen a baby gator in a bathtub in Tallahassee. Over the past few months, I’ve attempted to sketch a next-door neighbor in Carolina, both…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: My family came here the year before the Mayflower on the ship that Pocahontas went back to the mother country on. They settled in what’s now Patrick County, VA, and there they’ve stayed ever since. Except my grandmother, who raised me. She ran from the farm the…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I grew up in north Alabama, where I learned to shoot Roman candles at bulls from a truck bed, where I caught a baseball with my nose before I could catch one barehanded, where I lay in an ant bed so the doc could check my ankle…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I am so Southern I capitalize it. I am so Southern, every Sunday my dad would drive us out to the country to see the old home place where he had a pet pig and ate turnips on the way home from school. I am so Southern…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I am originally from Memphis, Tennessee where I attended school from 2nd to 12th grades, at Memphis Campus School and White Station High. After college, I moved to Florida where I am now retired. The Queen’s Skin I, too, am dying to find out why the Queen’s…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I am probably one of the few people here who did not grow up in the South so please don’t hold it against me. My wife and I originally had our honeymoon here just on a whim, but after vacationing down here in South Carolina (James Island,…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I was born and raised in Texas. According to my grandmother, I am a descendant of one of the families who founded San Patricio, Texas Average Working People Are Not Average A compassionate friend once said to me,over a cup of steaming herbal tea,“Are artists really the…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I live in Charlottesville Virginia. Today is the 12th of August. That statue is still there. And it shouldn’t. The Monument I used to be the statue thatpeople respected and looked at;but now I am the source of shameas all my friends forget my name. There was…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I was born near the swamp of Houston, Texas and the summertime there still makes me feel like I’m drowning on land. Although it’s not the prettiest beach, I would still run to Galveston often as a college freshman when I needed the solace of the ocean’s…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: For ten generations now my ancestors have lived in the mountains of southwestern Virginia. Great-great-great-great Granddaddy (briefly) lived in Kentucky, until a posse chased him back across the Virginia state line where he (and we) stayed. We eat cornbread, never grits. The Ballad of Lockhart’s Mule: An…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: Though the son of a Wedding DJ and the product of a place on the outskirts of Orlando, Florida, I was raised on collard greens, snap peas from my Papa’s garden and fellowship fried chicken after Sunday service at Grandma’s house. If I ever was thirsty I…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: What could be more Southern than a poem about Jesus? Well, okay: I grew up off the North Carolina coast and spent my childhood summers barefoot, hopping back and forth from the blazing-hot black asphalt of the road and the sandspur thickets along its sides. Despite those…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: Michelle Renee Hoppe is south of Jordan in Saudi Arabia. She grew up in Florida for a hot minute, and she is a nomadic displaced and fragmented sort of ghosty person. Tulip Bulbs Dry on a Sunday Morning of a Utah Spring When I learned Mormonism uprooted reason,…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: Carl “Papa” Palmer of Old Mill Road in Ridgeway, Virginia, lives in University Place, Washington. He is retired from the military and Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) enjoying life as Papa to his grand descendants and being a Franciscan Hospice volunteer. Carl is a Pushcart Prize, Best of…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: If everyone is south of somewhere then I suppose I am legitimate, because I was born and raised in the wilds of South Jersey. Also my mother’s father is from Kentucky. nevervision There was such a party in the ante times,if only it had happenedOh how they…