The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature – Page 20 – No good Southern writing is complete without a dead mule. Established 1996. New issues on the 15th of every month.

Florence Nash :: Vidalias ::

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I was born and raised in an Eastern North Carolina tobacco town with 6 stoplights and a lot more churches and a whole lot more kin, if you go by the generous Southern interpretation of the term....

Poetry

Karen Lozinski :: Directions Defy Horizons ::

Here’s my Southern Legitimacy Statement: Is geographic location enough in this instance…? I guess for me, it’s going to have to suffice. I’m from generations of hardcore New Yorkers. The city of my birth, most of my education, and my...

Creative Non-Fiction / Memoirs

Karsen Thompson :: The Fracture of My Shadow ::

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I hope this story touches you guys just like it did with me as I wrote it down in my grandmother’s old rustic house in Georgia’s humid state. I remember crying and eating her delicious sweet potato...

Poetry

Sam Barbee :: “A Dead-On Toss”, “Generous Gods” and “Tiny Dancers”

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I was born and given away at birth; raised and educated; married and divorced; defiled and defined, and churched, in North Carolina. Southern writers such as Flanner O’Conner and James Dickey molded my fiction and poetry. As...

Fiction

Katy Goforth :: All Women Marry Down and Other Fatherly Advice ::

Southern Legitimacy Statement Drinking out of an outdoor hose and running to the house in time to catch the opening song to my mama’s stories sums up my childhood. My roots are in South Carolina, but since meeting my spouse...

Poetry

Jerry Hogan :: “Bright Light,” “Reconcile,” and “Setting the Bar” ::

Southern Legitimacy Statement: Too often, our Native American past has been ignored or left out of Southern history. Here in Fayetteville, Arkansas we have a long connection to the Cherokee Nation. From 1839, when the John Benge detachment on the...

Fiction

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...

Poetry

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...

Creative Non-Fiction / Memoirs

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...

Fiction

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...

Florence Nash :: Vidalias ::

Karen Lozinski :: Directions Defy Horizons ::

Karsen Thompson :: The Fracture of My Shadow ::

Sam Barbee :: “A Dead-On Toss”, “Generous Gods” and “Tiny Dancers”

Katy Goforth :: All Women Marry Down and Other Fatherly Advice ::

Jerry Hogan :: “Bright Light,” “Reconcile,” and “Setting the Bar” ::

S. C. Davis :: The Infinite Wisdom of Moss ::

Jane Blanchard :: pluff mud ::

Carol Anne Perini :: Ancestral Stars ::

Paul Colby :: Declaration of Independence ::

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