My Southern Legitimacy Statement: Born in Virginia though the important years happened in North Carolina, now I live in Hanoi, which though considered the north here is still farther south than anywhere else I’ve ever lived. Summer Portrait Nasturtiums and deflated, purple balloon flowers.Wild tiger lilies orange and defiant the…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I’m an Memphian, currently living just outside Jacksonville, Florida. Ohio She is all about living large, She, with a capital S.Living large is easy when you’ve never worked.Working sooner or later makes you feel small. Itgrinds you down, tears you up; we all go into themeat grinder,…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I am originally from Dickson, TN… yes Dickson, a town with no Starbucks or Target. I’m now living on the river in Nashville, TN. So Suddenly Mortal I dreamt I was old and nowthe waking hours seem sharperlike broken shells on a patch of sandmy feet have…

My Southern Legitimacy Philosophy: The minute I cross the Louisiana border, strangers assume I’m a neighbor, distant relative, someone they know. Like I never left. Maybe it’s my brassy humor, my tuba laugh. Wheel of Misfortune When my future ex stepped from hiswhite Caddy, tanked, and the dick threw his…

Southern Legitimacy? I was born and raised in Kentucky, which is south of Ohio, though a bit north of Tennessee. I think I have more southern cred than J.D. Vance, since I spent more than a few summers with my mamaw. A writer dreams of America ~after Jack Kerouac A…

Statement of Southern Legitimacy: My family came to North Carolina in the 1600’s. Then we got lost somehow and found ourselves in Iowa. (Still, it was southern Iowa). The U.S. Air Force came to our aid by shipping my father to Biloxi. This was pre-casinos, barely pre-Camille Biloxi. Back when…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I was born in West Virginia. Torn between the northern and southern cultures in the United States, I grew up conflicted about my identity as a young woman from Appalachia. When I tell someone I’m from West Virginia, I usually get the response, “How close to Richmond…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: Hope all is well. I’m writing to you from south North America, bottom cousin to our neighbors (Canada) to the north. I don’t know if that legitimizes my submission, but I’m going out on a limb just to see. Something Like Language rainalways makesme thinkof languageas lessor…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I left Virginia more than 30 years ago to settle eventually in Seattle: “As far away from us as you can get!” my folks would say. Though I’m happily settled in the Pacific Northwest, I reminisce about humid summer days at the Chesapeake Bay where my parents…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I was born north of the Mason-Dixon line, but with a Southern spirit. Now I’m happily settled where Southern red cedar bedecked in Spanish moss shares the landscape with live oaks and cabbage palms—Florida,the land of flowers, where it’s harder to stop something from growing than to…

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…