Southern Legitimacy Statement: were I not in fact and in deed a native Southerner, I would not have cultivated my appreciation for the anachronistic, the ancient, the antique, the archaic, and the atavistic across my life and career. Although I have located to a western longitude in recent years, my…
Southern Legitimacy Statement: I was born into the same economic class as Job’s turkey in eastern Tennessee, and grew up into a neighborhood of lowlifes, wastrels, and questionable IQs. I managed to get myself educated and to a certain extent, literate. I teach and write in the Smokies. Tippycanoe: Swamped…
Southern Legitimacy Statement: I am a southerner by way of my husband and having lived in the small North Carolina town where he was raised for more years than I can count. Have you ever eaten Liver Mush? Add Liver Mush to your diet and you will be southern in…
Southern Legitimacy Statement: I am from Virginia, lived in NYC for 25 years and North Jersey for 6, but do not like it. I miss Norfolk, which is sinking under the sea. I am as lonely as an Atlantean. Still Life I go out. I don’t remember how I got…
Southern Legitimacy Statement: I am from a little place called Harts in the coalfields of southern West Virginia. In Harts, we’re taught to speak with an accent that makes even other Southerns go “Where are you from?!” These days I live in the mountains of southwestern Virginia. The Daughter I…
Southern Legitimacy Statement Southern Legitimacy Statement : I went to college in Delaware (not the south) but anyone south of Glasboro, NY, thought they were–and the accents were thick. In my travels, my drives south, I realized that the south was calm and quiet—the way it should be. For that,…
Southern Legitimacy Statement: We repainted our front porch ceiling last fall and it’s haint blue, the proper southern tone of sky blue so prevalent in old houses around here. Sherwin Williams has a paint color named “porch ceiling blue” in honor of such occasions. We’ve got a “Haint Blue” story…
A head of Shaanxi Writers Association is developing a residency program for Shaanxi Writers Association. He plans to invite a few American artists (poets and writers) to have a residency at Shaanxi Writers Association. A requirement is that the artists should write something about Shaanxi Province after the residency. They…
Southern Legitimacy Statement: My friend Sam told if I’m tellin the truth I can wander around a little but if I’m puttin out a stretcher I better stick to the straight and narrow and repeat it exact. So I’m stickin to the truth, mostly. 1. I am The Bard of…
Southern Legitimacy Statement: I was born in the stench of the Gulf Coast refineries, raised in trailerhomes and white trash apartment complexes. My daddy got the calling to be a preacher but my momma didn’t get the calling to be a preacher’s wife, so she made him quit. Heart-Shaped Rock…
SOUTHERN LEGITIMACY STATEMENT I’ve lived in Louisiana for a handful of years, and I’m now working on a PhD in Rhetoric and Composition at LSU. In my time here, I’ve tried many different gas stations’ boudin (they always have the BEST boudin. My favorite: Nonc Kev’s in Rayne); done too…
Southern Legitimacy Statement: . I was born and raised for twenty-one years in a little town of less than 2,000 people known as Vancleave, Mississippi. There wasn’t ever much to do there growing up if you weren’t a fan of hunting and fishing, so I became rather introverted and focused…
Southern Legitimacy Statement: I was born in Norfolk, Virginia and grew up in nearby Virginia Beach. Spent lots of time in Gloucester VA where my mom grew up. Summers almost always involved a two-week trip to the Blue Ridge. If you want to go further back, I recently traced a…
Southern Legitimacy Statement: My family is from Texarkana, Tx: my great-greats, greats, grands, mother and sister. I was born in the backwoods of what Ginsberg dubbed, “nowhere Zen New Jersey” and grow up working of my step-father’s azelea and rhododendron nursury. At 91, my grandfather still holds court in Texarkana…
Southern Legitimacy Statement: My grandfather spent his twilight years drinking cognac and reliving the War. Initially Papa Jules had been assigned submarine duty. He was transferred to a desk job in Brussels after his submarine commander realized Papa spoke a peculiar kind of French. When Papa died we found hidden…
Southern Legitimacy Statement: Dawn Corrigan lives in the Congressional district of Matt Gaetz. Help us, Obi-Wan Kenobi. Tomato Soup It arrived in May. Faye had tried to get some in April, but she’d lingered so long over the details of that order—adding a box of chips, removing a canister of…
Southern Legitimacy Statement: I was born in Mobile, Ala., to parents whose ancestors lived throughout the southern parts of Alabama. My parents’ divorce eventually migrated me to the most Southern place on Earth, the Mississippi Delta. I was raised in the Delta, went to college at Southern Miss in Hattiesburg,…
Southern Legitimacy Statement: Born in North Carolina, weaned on beer and oysters, Braxton Younts lived in the heart of Appalachia. After that he roamed the cold streets of America, Europe and Japan, chasing elusive dreams, writing a little, things mostly for himself, and trying to forget something very sad that…
Southern Legitimacy Statement: I was born in Illinois against my will and fled that state for a better future in Texas. When family ask if I’ll ever return there, I can’t stop laughing at them, not with them. Why would I want to return to a place where it snows…
Southern Legitimacy Statement: Born and grew up in Mink Shoals, West Virginia. I love being in places with neat town names not found in the L.A. Times—most recently: Big Stick, Blue Jay 6, and Odd. Brown beans and cornbread might be my favorite meal. With wineberries for dessert. Will not…
Southern Legitimacy Statement: I am originally from south Louisiana, where I grew up on the Bayou Teche. I now call eastern North Carolina home, where I live part-time on the Pamlico River. I teach at East Carolina University. I’ve written about Southern writers through most of my career, but have…
Southern Legitimacy Statement: … born and raised Floridian. The Final Girl “Come out and show yourself, Krueger!” My eyes shoot open and my heart instantly thrusts its gears to full throttle, preparing me for the unthinkable sight I’m about to witness. As I look around frantically for the source, I…
Southern Legitimacy Statement: I am legitimately southern. Both sides of my family go back many generations in North Carolina. I live (and write) in Wilmington. Broken “It’s broken,” Mama said, as though Jim couldn’t see the handlebars for himself. “I told you to quit trying to do a wheelie. It’s…
Southern Legitimacy Statement: I was born in Norfolk, Virginia and grew up in nearby Virginia Beach. Spent lots of time in Gloucester VA where my mom grew up. Summers almost always involved a two-week trip to the Blue Ridge. If you want to go further back, I recently traced a…