Southern Legitimacy Statement: I grew up in the capital of the Confederacy, a stone’s throw from the James River. My dad grew up on Monument Avenue, a stone’s throw from the Jefferson Davis monument. My grandpa used to say “you can’t beat a dead mule and expect him to pull…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I was born and raised one block south of the southern shore of Lake Erie, not far from the Cuyahoga River, which back then was redder than the reddest red clay of Georgia. We didn’t brag about it, though. Did the red clay of Georgia ever catch…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I was born and raised in Philadelphia (Southeastern Pennsylvania), which is south of the rest of Pennsylvania. For the last few years I’ve lived in North Carolina, which is actually traditionally considered to be “The South,” and, after trying hushpuppies and sweet tea, I can say I…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: Not a native but I have settled in both Carolinas longer than an eye on a tater. Appreciating over a duo of decades away from kin and my midwestern roots to savor Blue Ridge mountain hikes and white-water rafting somewhere under thick foggy mornings and red clay…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: As a trans woman, I am happy to see you all seeking to create opportunities for a diverse array of southern voices and would love to be a part of realizing that goal. I grew up in Matthews, North Carolina, spending most of my time acting in…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: Paul Jones was born in Hickory, NC. He did started his growing up in Charlotte, then spent four years at NC State. Having been at NC State allowed him to teach for 40 years at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill. Of a Marriage My…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: We don’t say ‘I’m from the South’ here. I usually don’t have to say where I’m from. People know our Texas from the way we talk, slow. The way we walk, with a purpose. The way we act, hospitable. The way we dress, not to please you….

Southern Legitimacy Statement: With the exception of four years in Starkville, Mississippi and short stretch in Lexington, Kentucky, I have lived my life in Memphis, Tennessee, which is actually more Arkansan and Mississippian than Tennesseean. It’s a city of light, sound, oak trees, and give and take. We’ve Been Places…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: Perhaps some would say that as a transplanted Yankee, I could only write a Southern Illegitimacy Statement, but I lived in the South between the age of 8 and the age of 23. I got my hands smelly playing in the polluted Timber Branch near my home…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: The simple fact of being a South Carolinian is enough to qualify me as southern, but i feel my inner southerner is a result of being a Barnet woman. A Barnet woman will rip a person to shreds with a wink and a smile. Barnet women are…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: …taught for five years at Transylvania University in Lexington, Kentucky, the oldest college west of the Appalachians where the Deep South used to send their favorite sons. In the years he devoted to writing his award-winning novel about the civil rights movement in Mississippi, The Children Bob…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: When I was 15, I gave away one of the best shirts I’ve ever owned: black, somehow fitted to my gawky frame, with white lettering that read “I (red heart shape) the South.” I sat beside a slightly older girl in geometry who borrowed my vanilla lip…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I come from Charlotte. When I was little, we went to church at Long Creek Baptist, and I was baptized by a preacher named Kenny, all the way under the water, but just for a second, hardly long enough to think I’d died. I never really had…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I was born and raised in Oklahoma with sausage gravy and biscuits and grits. My paternal ancestors were removed from Georgia and Tennessee through the Trail of Tears. My family lived on their allotments in the Going Snake District in Indian Territory. My grandmother’s land was sold…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I was born in Vidalia, Georgia, but I now reside in Valdosta, Georgia, moving from onions into the swampy landscape to study Creative Writing at Valdosta State University. Though my accent may not show it, I am a Southern native who enjoys going barefoot and drinking sweet…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: Having been blessed and honored to have appeared previously in the Mule, I’d proudly hang my southern legitimacy on that fact alone. However, if you need more, let me just point out that when you grow up in a small town anywhere south, Jesus is just about…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I live in Virginia, have lived here for 35 years. I know it’s in the South, but I didn’t recognize that at first. I thought the South was where I grew up—in New Orleans, in Louisiana, in an Italian family with a corner store. I trace back…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: Native to Virginia and long-resident in Georgia, I’m as Southern as Southern can be. (Let’s not talk about the seven-year stretch in New Jersey.) A prominent Mid-Western poet once told me during a workshop, “I could listen to you read the phone book.” Flatware, USA If you…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: My father’s family were Appalachian farmers from Letcher County, KY and my mother’s were German Jews who ran a kosher deli on Beale Street in Memphis. I live in a remote fold of the NC mountains now. I still talk slow, still love my mother’s home-baked challah,…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: Mike Horan was raised in the South but now makes his home in the desert outside Palm Springs, California. Landscape I get up while it’s still darkHave toOver 100 before eight a.m.The summer usualBut I need to get outside andmove around the neighborhoodmy space before locking myself in…

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 a 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…