Southern Legitimacy Statement: My wife was born in Little Rock, AR. We’ve made our home there for the past two years. Three Poems AT LAST she stands in the upstairs window framed in stone choker chain around her neck stares across the water over the rolling knoll through the forest…
Southern Legitimacy Statement: Chris Jansen is a former heroin addict. He lives in Athens, Georgia, where he teaches fitness boxing and cares for a disinterested guinea pig named Poozybear. If You Want to Know the Truth If You Want to Know the Truth God lied. It was the serpent who…
Southern Legitimacy Statement: I started out with “I’m southern ’cause I wanna be,” went on to become the Poetry Editor, and then the Poetry Editor Emeritus of this here Mule. Long live all the dead mules, especially this one. A yellow flower pops up A yellow flower pops up on…
Southern Legitimacy Statement: Contributed a couple of pieces to The Dead Mule about 20 years ago. Born in central Florida, moved to north Georgia. Southern legitimacy? Family reunions always ended with my Uncle Clyde passing out shine to the men while the women gathered in Aunt Annie Mae’s spare bedroom…
Southern Legitimacy Statement: I’m a rare Miami native, who has grown up surrounded by South Florida palms and tropical breezes for over five decades. My father was from Wisconsin and my mother is from Cuba. They met in Miami in the early sixties, when they were considered a mixed marriage….
Southern Legitimacy Statement: I was born in Rome, GA, and raised in Trion, Pennville, and Summerville, GA. After many years as a road musician and earning three degrees–A.S., B.A., M.A., I taught English in three colleges, two of them in Georgia, after returning to my roots. I now live and…
Southern Legitimacy Statement: If you don’t believe I’m legitimately Southern by now, Val, you ain’t right in the haidbone. Rusty Roses Mama used to say that she never had to lecture me much because I knew right from wrong. She told me that when I was about ten in the…
Southern Legitimacy Statement: After my discharge from the US Army 20 years ago, I planted my roots in Fort Worth, Texas. Since moving here, I have become a huge fan of high school football, pickup trucks, mesquite wood smoke, and the 5 basic food groups (BBQ brisket, tacos, chicken fried…
I am a happy Southern transplant and have lived in the beautiful state of Tennessee for six years now. I adore this place and have absolutely no plans to leave. The plates on my car and frequent use of the word “y’all” both confirm that I am firmly planted. Strike…
Southern Legitimacy Statement: My family never hid our crazy folks; they generally sat on the front porch and enjoyed the breeze just like the family who weren’t crazy. Come to think of it, we all had some crazy mixed in amongst our sanity. My mother cooked red-eye gravy every time…
Southern Legitimacy Statement: When you think the best meal in the world is a pot of pinto beans or cabbage with corn bread you have to be southern. This meal is what I’d find at my grandparents’ house when I came home from school. But the day had started with…
Southern Legitimacy Statement : I grew up running barefoot through the Ouachita and Ozark Mountains chasing crappie by day and visiting with family on the front porch as lightning bugs lit up the night sky. I ran off with the U.S. Air Force and ended up with a law degree…
Southern Legitimacy Statement: Of course, it’s Southern and because I’ve been writing in the South and about the South for several decades, I think I’m a Southerner. Last year, I begged my wife to stop along I-75 in Southern Georgia, so I could pick up a prosthetic leg someone had…
Southern Legitimacy Statement: I know that a Moon Pie is best served heated from the oven, is eaten with a knife and a fork, and is served on a dessert plate passed down from your great-grandmother who never learned any of the children’s names and referred to you strictly as…
Wow! What an amazing bunch of talent we have here in Dead Mule Territory. Had over 85 entries in the Flash Fiction Competition. The fierce competition is over and we have a winner! We will publish the Winner and Five Honorable Mentions in the June 2019 Dead Mule School of…
Southern Legitimacy Statement: I live in Charlotte, North Carolina with my husband and ten-year-old son. The Line The line shifts. I move quickly, bumping the woman in front of me. Sorry, I mumble. She doesn’t acknowledge me. I think about all the things I have to do. The door opens,…
Southern Legitimacy Statement: I was born and raised in Missouri and now live (very, very) close to Atlanta. With the exception of college, I have spent my entire life in the South. My Insurance Policy From 1997 to 2002, I taught members of industrial fire brigades from Oklahoma to Maine…
Southern Legitimacy Statement: Skinny, straight-haired, fishing for antlions in the dry dust of Faulkner’s tool shed at Roanoke. Waiting, watching the evening in the branches of tall magnolias. I am there in 2004, as the cicadas, after seventeen years of silence, emerge and turn the state into a hum. I…
Southern Legitimacy Statement: Elizabeth Byard grew up in Arkansas but currently lives in rural Oklahoma with her husband, cats and llamas. They are in the final stages of becoming licensed foster parents. Lucky Girl I’ve come to terms with a lot of things in my life. I will never be…
Southern Legitimacy Statement: I was born in Rome, GA, and raised in Trion, Pennville, and Summerville, GA. After many years as a road musician and earning three degrees–A.S., B.A., M.A., I taught English in three colleges, two of them in Georgia, after returning to my roots. I now live and…
SOUTHERN LEGACY STATEMENT You can move here from somewhere else. That’s fine. Southern folks are supposed to be friendly and open. We may even wave at you passing by. We do get a little testy where you start telling us, “Well, that’s not how we did it in Syracuse.” Of…
… the May Mule publication schedule is pushed back to May 15th. Hang in there, dear ones, if your writing doesn’t appear on the first, it will be online soon. Thank you for your patience. All things come to those who wait. Patience is a virtue. Valerie
Southern Legitimacy Statement: I was born in Rome, GA, and raised in Trion, Pennville, and Summerville, GA After many years as a road musician and earning three degrees–A.S., B.A., M.A., I taught English in three colleges, two of them in Georgia, after returning to my roots. I now live and…
I was born in Rome, GA, and raised in Trion, Pennville, and Summerville, GA After many years as a road musician and earning three degrees–A.S., B.A., M.A., I taught English in three colleges, two of them in Georgia, after returning to my roots. I now live and write in a…