S. C. Davis :: The Infinite Wisdom of Moss ::
Southern Legitimacy Statement: I’ve lived in Walker County, Alabama my entire life. Our main exports are coal, tornadoes, and The Old Testament. I’ve seen ghosts in barbecue restaurants and preachers in strip joints. I own a painting which depicts Bear...
Jane Blanchard :: pluff mud ::
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...
Carol Anne Perini :: Ancestral Stars ::
Southern Legitimacy Statement: My maiden name is Totten. My ancestor, Joseph Gilbert Totten was the Chief Civil Engineer who built the Civil War-era Fort Totten as part of the Defenses of Washington, D.C. Though not a true Southerner, his legacy...
Paul Colby :: Declaration of Independence ::
Southern Legitimacy Statement: I’ve lived in the former confederacy most of my life. I was born in Texas, grew up in Virginia, and now live on a two-acre spread in Wake County, North Carolina, half-covered in pine trees and bordered...
Jan Jolly :: The Tofurkey Type ::
My Southern Legitimacy Statement: I was born in the Landmark community in Arkansas (not big enough to be called a “town,” mind you) down the road from Singley Dairy. When we had to move to town, my mother tried to...
Alan May :: The Boy and the Monster ::
Southern Legitimacy Statement: I grew up in Central Heights in northwest Alabama, and I’ve lived in Tuscaloosa and Knoxville. I have never been outside of the south for more than a few days at a stretch. I was 25 before...
Jolie Day :: Summer Walk 2008 ::
Southern Legitimacy Statement: from a college town as a bona fide townie, I grew up in Carrboro, North Carolina, and if you know, you know it’s different from Chapel Hill. The long disputed border is a burrito restaurant and a...
Marsha Hawkins :: I Could Make That For You ::
Southern Legitimacy Statement: My twang bounces off the walls anywhere above the gnat line of Georgia and especially in Richmond, Virginia, where I have settled for the past 14 years, constantly explaining to people that I was born and grew...
Malcolm Glass :: The Last Time He Tried ::
Southern Legitimacy Statement: I grew up in Florida. And that certainly doesn’t count. Surrounded by rich Yankees for twenty-some-odd years, I had no idea what the South was about. But I came to Tennessee sixty years ago and went to...
John Riley :: Five Truly Incredible Poems ::
Southern Legitimacy Statement: After I listened to Sinatra singing “The Wee Small Hours of the Morning” earlier today and remembering how much I liked it as a kid, I thought about how the song had come into my life. My...
Joshua Edds :: Time ::
Southern Legitimacy Statement: I was born in West Virginia but have called the Carolinas home for the last 16 years. Time I shot a doe as she stood by her fawn A yearling born in the spring The fawn looked...
Amanda Pugh :: A Wild Life Refuge ::
Southern Legitimacy Statement: I am as Southern as grits, biscuits, and gravy, having the double blessing of being brought into this world in the great state of Georgia (Atlanta to be precise) and having my raising in the Volunteer State...
Brianna Corley : Omnipotence ::
Southern Legitimacy Statement: In the forgotten parts of Louisiana, where there are more trees than swamp, my great grandfather really did put snapping turtles in his cattle gaps— much to my mother’s and aunt’s horror. Omnipotence Scooter Ray’s pawpaw filled the...
Poetry
Essays
