James Ryer :: Sweet Home Alabama ::
Southern Legitimacy Statement: I was raised during the late 1940s to the early 1960s in Central Florida, not usually considered a Deep South state, but still not without some of…
August 2023 Issue
Short and sweet, it’s too gosh darn hot to think. I know you know. Take a few minutes out of your day and peruse a few bits of short fiction.…
Ian Mueller :: Unseeing ::
Southern Legitimacy Statement: Yeah, I was born in St. Louis, Missouri, but I moved to Charlotte, North Carolina, when I was four. My Midwestern cousins used to tease me about…
Susan Mannix :: The Nun’s Lounge ::
Southern Legitimacy Statement: The most legit thing I can say is I’m not originally from the south and don’t pretend to be. I’ve lived [barely] below the Mason-Dixon Line most…
Gary Phillips :: Mule and Garden Days Be Praised ::
Southern Legitimacy Statement: I’m a 69-year old writer who remembers when he was a 13-year old writer, as Octavia Butler was wont to say. Tossed between the Cherokee foothills of…
Melissa A. Morgan :: Fine Folks ::
Southern Legitimacy Statement: I was raised south of the Mason-Dixon line and east of the Mississippi River. I was raised on yes, ma’am and no, sir. I was raised on…
Basil McQuade :: Telling Stories/Immaculate Sadness ::
Southern Legitimacy Statement: I’m southern in the stepson way. I glean from trips and family and stories– and I understand the pieces, if not the whole picture. I know just…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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.…
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,…