Anthony Picardi :: infection ::
Southern Legitimacy Statement I moved to a small farm on Virginia’s Eastern Shore in 2004. Last year, we finalized a conservation easement on our entire 64-acre farm so it would…
Richard Weaver: “In the Year of the Mullet”
Southern Legitimacy Statement: I was born on the same day that George Armstrong Custer died, though “Autie”, as he called his adopted self, and I never exchanged letters. But that…
May Jordan: “Walking Through”
Walking Through A Sunday lit with sunlight made the mountain of snow we accumulated, shine as if a glacier at dawn. I was up-stairs getting dressed for church when suddenly,…
Barbara Conrad: “This Bed”
This Bed I’m counting the years I’ve slept in this Charleston four-poster rice bed, and yes, the men who’ve slept here with me. More than five, fewer than a dozen,…
Paul Jones: “Hell”
About my Southernness: I am still Southern. The other day, I visited the Old St Paul’s Cemetery near Newton, NC. The place is chock full of Setzers, my grandmother’s people.…
David Kirby: “I’m Not the Person She Thinks You Are”
Southern Legitimacy Statement: I spent the first twenty-one years of my life in Baton Rouge. Like everyone else, I knew all about Billy Cannon, the LSU halfback who won the…
Dead Mule Submissions and more…
Hey ya’ll. I sent an email to those of you out there with submissions sitting in the Submittable hopper for the last eight months or more. Basically, if you submitted…
What’s Your Label? Valerie MacEwan
I choose my label. “Writer” It’s rectangular. And temporary. I remove the large blue HELLO, I AM ____________ paper tag from my sweater and stick it to the mirror. Twenty years ago,…
Alexandra Melnick: Blade Running in the South
(Reprint from 2017 October Issue of the Dead Mule, seems very relevant today) In 1990, at a public lecture series on art in Los Angeles, three out of five leading…
“Our Nativity – 1970” by Dawn Wilson
(From the 2013 December issue of the Dead Mule. Truly a classic.) We had to borrow a baby. That was the least of our troubles. There were half a dozen…
Benjamin Scott: Travis, the First
Southern Legitimacy Statement: I was born in Dallas to a father from Hopkins County, Texas and a mother from Ashley County, Arkansas. I come from a long and proud line…
Ed Brickell: The Horned Toads Confront Their Young Human Captors
Southern Legitimacy Statement: I was born in Batesville, Arkansas and was duly moved to Palestine, Texas at the age of three so my dad could try his hand at coaching…
David Earl Williams: When She Dressed Up Nice
Southern Legitimacy Statement: I grew up at Greenup County in Kentucky right near Plum Fork Holler. My grandfather was a graduate of Leavenworth in Kansas where he received his federal…
Lenny Lianne: When Rains Were Frog Chokers
My Southern Legitimacy Statement: I spent the first five-eighth of my life, the formative years, in Virginia and come from Southerners with a love of language and landscape, good storytellers.…
Christopher Lowe: Hashbrowns
Southern Legitimacy Statement: I spent my first 22 years in Mississippi and my next 17 in south Louisiana. I was driven northward by hurricanes, but my southern bonafides abide. I…
Claire Massey: Driver Side Window
Southern Legitimacy Statement: My grandparents’ Mississippi home was my port in a storm. There was literal nourishment (oh, that gumbo and cornbread!) as well as literary food for a budding…
Looking for new hosting…
Well, to be honest, I’ve had it with GoDaddy. The Dead Mule migrated to Managed WordPress on GoDaddy years ago because of the constant threat of attack. Stupid vulnerabilities popped…
Cecile Dixon: Barlow
Southern Legitimacy Statement: I was jerked up by my hair, (according to several preachers) in the spot where the Bluegrass kisses the Appalachian Mountains. I traveled the Hillbilly Highway North…
Jonathan Odell: The Language of Home
Southern Legitimacy Statement: Born and raised a white guy in Jim Crow Mississippi. In other words, I missed a hell of lot of what went on around me from my…
David Stafford: Shoes
Southern Legitimacy Statement: Just doodling ’round during the pandemic and thought I’d drop you a few lines. I’m still a tater-eating, ex-cotton picker from the Missouri bootheel, living in the…
Jessica Weyer Bentley: Revival
Southern Legitimacy Statement: As with all volunteer vegetation, I was transferred South as a seedling in the wind as my mother decided to give a southern man a chance the…