Tom Sheehan: The Day I Grew Up
Southern Legitimacy Statement: I have appeared in your publication, spent a recent vacation in NC, read in NC, worked in Tennessee for a short time. The Day I Grew Up I was fighting it all the way, wearing knickers, me, twelve...
Carroll Leggett: sis claire
Southern Legitimacy Statement: To start with, I can’t find your so-called “Southern Legitimacy Statement” on this website, so you can just kiss my old southern ass if you don’t think I am southern enough for you. My forbearer James Castellow was...
Nelson Lowhim: Journal of the Dead
Southern Legitimacy Statement: Writer and veteran. Born in Africa, currently live in Washington State. Oh, it doesn’t really end there, but that should be good for now. Since some people tend to ask: yes I served in the US Army. I...
Geoff Balme: Dizzy Looking Up
The sky was so high and so blue we got dizzy staring up at it. Contrails criss-crossed like giant, white, pick-up sticks. Stumbling out into the sun after so many hours of nothing but being fat-assed on the sofa, eyes...
Paul Gilberry: The Iroquois King
Once we needed Christmas lights for a 4th of July party, so I went out to the shed, which was getting a little rough after Katrina and Wilma, and there was a possum sleeping on the Christmas lights, and I...
Reine Bouton: Moving On
My SLS: Native New Orleanian. Lover of family, jazz, grits, gumbo, Mardi Gras, porches, and Pimm’s Cup. Besides living in New Orleans, I have a son, a dog, and a cat, and have taught English at Southeastern Louisiana University...
Jake Ford: Sacrifice
Southern Legitimacy Statement (redux): ’m a fifth generation East Tennessean. I’ve cleared fields, dug post holes, chopped wood, and hauled hay. Had a beagle named Clyde that wadn’t worth a damn. As a teen I worked at the local AM country...
Eve Lyons: Don’t Mess With Texas
Southern Legitimacy Statement: I grew up in San Antonio, Texas. Eve’s poetry can be found here on the Dead Mule. Don’t Mess With Texas In sixth grade I started middle school. I was terrified to go to Garner, my local public...
Allison Thorpe: Four Poems
Southern Legitimacy Statement: I’ve swallowed moonshine and lived to brag about it; escaped a copperhead’s randy tongue; ridden a tobacco setter like some rogue elephant; eaten fresh-caught bluegill at dawn; been romanced by a choir of whippoorwills; and fallen asleep amid...
Edward Lang: The Strange Case of David Lang
The Strange Case of David Lang I was named for my great-grandfather, David Lang. David has long been a source of speculation and fascination owing to his disappearance near Gallatin, Tennessee, on September 23, 1880. He supposedly vanished into thin...
Matt Starr: Phoenix
Southern Legitimacy Statement: I’m so Southern that it’s literally the only thing I know how to write about. I was born and raised in the mill town of Kannapolis, North Carolina to a family with accents so thick you could...
CL Bledsoe: Waiting for the Miracle
Another in our bi-weekly Series of Memoirs from Mule editor CL Bledsoe. His southern bona fides run deep, just read on… Waiting for the Miracle My home town was like this: ( ). Wynne had eight thousand people, a Wal...
Jake Ford: The Sacrificial Llama
Southern Legitimacy Statement: I’m a fifth generation East Tennessean. I’ve cleared fields, dug post holes, chopped wood, and hauled hay. Had a beagle named Clyde that wadn’t worth a damn. As a teen I worked at the local AM country...
Poetry
Essays
