David Kirby :: My Hometown ::
Southern Legitimacy Statement: I spent the first twenty-four years of my life in the South, so when I started looking for jobs, I decided I’d live anywhere but. I ended up with five job offers, all in Southern cities. I remember...
Rory Squires :: A Love Letter to Humanity ::
SLS: My mother’s extended family originated in West Virginia, so half of the family has accents. While I live in Pennsylvania, I can still point out and label the southern states, and I adore the Waffle House. *Ya’ll need to...
Kayla Branstetter :: Changing Directions ::
Southern Legitimacy Statement: On your website, you stated “Let the bitter past be studied–not re-lived.” “Changing Directions” mirrors that southern attitude because Tony allowed me to interview her about her bitter past for others to study in hopes they will...
Christopher S. Bell :: Stream ::
Southern Legitimacy Statement: My South is steam rising up from the lake water and a wealth of abandoned antiquieties sitting on shelves, thier paint slowly fading from the heat. It’s an empty space that flakes like skin and haunts from...
Raymond Berthelot :: Three Poems ::
And of course I’m a Southern writer geographically, and socially I’d imagine. Somebody has got to be on the outside, and if I am to be out, I’d rather be South of out. Three Poems Absences We’ll cook the black...
Cynthia Gilmore :: My Boobs at Sixty ::
Southern Legitimacy Statement: I moved south kicking and screaming in 2015 with my partner, a leg man. He stalks women on the balmy South Carolina coast where I left him, while I’ve made a peaceful home in the mountains of...
David VanDevelder :: A Requiem for Grandmother Tree ::
Southern Legitimacy Statement: We were a prototypical southern nuclear family. My Papaw came up in the Great Smokey Mountains, near Farner, Tennessee and Cherokee, North Carolina. When he was nine, he lost track of the time one summer evening, squirrel...
K. L. Johnson :: All Saints Day Savannah; In the Sandhills; Walking With my Ex’s Mother ::
Southern Legitimacy Statement: I’m an army brat, but grew up in South Carolina, the state that’s too small to be a republic and too big to be an insane asylum according to the politician James Louis Pettigru. I tend to...
Lucas Zuehl :: Emily ::
Southern Legitimacy Statement: I used to live in Texas, and it was the only place in the US where people would come up and talk to me without selling me something. Emily A low banging pulses throughout her head. At...
Leo Coffey :: Gutted ::
Southern Legitimacy Statement: I was born and raised in a small community in Western North Carolina. I come from a long line of trade workers, musicians, and storytellers. The South is my home. Gutted The glow of the moon overhead...
Susan Pepper Robbins :: Fred Speaks at Last ::
My Southern Legitimacy Statement is this: I have lived in rural Virginia for 75 years and seen the public schools integrated, the white flight schools close and some Confederate Statues come down. I love the good parts of the South:...
Frankie Franco :: Finding and Fulfilling Our Purpose Right Where We Are ::
My Southern Legitimacy Statement is that my Grandpa on one side was born in Oklahoma before it was a state and my Grandma on the other side was born in Mexico. That’s pretty far South if you ask me! I’m...
P. A. Knight :: La-Z-Boy ::
Southern Legitimacy Statement: I was born in Richmond, Virginia and still live there. My momma was from Franklin County and grew up on bootleg money. My daddy’s from Johnson City, Tennessee. When it’s warm I try to jump in the...
Kenneth M. Kapp :: Bragging Rights ::
Southern Legitimacy Statement: I’ve been in the south. Got shot at running rural streets in Raleigh, NC; ran free on the levees in New Orleans. Love Faulkner. Parents & in-laws retired in Florida. Almost died from fire ants in Tarpon...
Ray Whitaker :: Three Poems for October ::
My Southern Legitimacy Statement: After moving west, I find that I to this day, compare things out here in Big Sky country to standards set by having lived in North Carolina for a lot of my life…. truly I do...
Poetry
Essays
