Drew Coons :: Becoming a Man ::
Southern Legitimacy Statement: I entered this world in Florence, Alabama in 1950. My family dates from the Carolinas in the early 1700s. Family lore has my predecessors fighting the British along with Mel Gibson depicted in the movie The Patriot....
Clayton Walker :: euthanasia ::
Southern Legitimacy Statement: Refusing the confederate conscript, the men of Winston County, Alabama were given a choice to join the confederate army or be killed. Several men, including my great great grandfather, refused to join, were jailed, and minutes before...
James Ryer :: Commentary on the State of Western Democracy – A Visually Sensory Essay ::
Southern Legitimacy Statement: I have almost exclusively lived in the South. The earlier part of that time was still the Old South: segregation, before the Civi Rights legislation of 1960 and 1964, before there was any real sense of diversity...
Greg Stidham :: Mississippi in Spring
Southern Legitimacy Statement: Am I legitimate? Well, my parents led me to believe so. But legitimately “southern”? I was born in Indiana, lived in Ohio until age five, when we moved to Atlanta when it was still a town–pre-Falcons, pre-Underground...
Eddie Black :: Healing Comes to Morewell Elsewhere ::
Southern Legitimacy Statement: I come from a place where you save leftover fat in a coffee can for biscuits or eggs or a gravy base. I come from a place where men go from one mother to another right after...
R. Barkley :: Joanna Eden Carmel ::
Southern Legitimacy Statement: My family moved from NC to TX when I was 1 year old and back to NC when I was 10. Most of my life has been spent within Research Triangle Park’s sphere of influence, but I...
Devin Jacobsen :: Evil in the Object ::
Southern Legitimacy Statement: Was born and grew up in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. So my hands still deliciously smart from years of attending crawfish boils. Evil in the Object For a while I thought love meant the same thing as doing...
Ocracoke Island, NC
Yes, the April issue is lagging behind, no fooling. I’m on Ocracoke Island, NC. Where the wi-fi is slow and the living is good. If you’re scheduled to be published this month, you’ll be online by Thursday the 13th. I...
Erika Hoffman :: Home Fries Riff ::
Southern Legitimacy Statement: I attended Duke University aka University of New Jersey, the state where I was born and bred. I married a Georgian fellow I met there and lived in Atlanta for five years before returning to North Carolina...
Candice Kelsey :: Relationship Smarts ::
Southern Legitimacy Statement: About nine months ago, I left Los Angeles for Augusta, GA. My back yard pushes up against the Savannah River, and I awake most mornings to the staccato of buck shot aimed at duck or deer. I...
Juan Cruz :: Open All Night ::
Southern Legitimacy Statement: I was born in Bogotá, Colombia. I lived in South Carolina for almost a decade. I earned a PhD in Comparative Literature from the University of South Carolina (the original USC) before moving to Clinton, where I...
Andrew Brasfield :: Green Top ::
Southern Legitimacy Statement: I live just outside of Birmingham, Alabama, across the creek from where I grew up. Despite spending eighteen years yelling “War Eagle” like my uncle and grandfather, I ended up at the University of Alabama. While attending the...
State of the Mule Address
Southern Legitimacy Statement: I’m so southern, I created the southern legitimacy statement in 1996 when we first started publishing this literary journal. The requirement to send a “statement” seemed fun at the time and necessary later. As the submissions grew,...
Poetry
Essays
