Fiction

Dale Ain’t Dead and Elvis Ain’t Either by G. C. Smith

Here by special request, back from The Dead, April 2005: Southern Legitimacy Statement: I'm for sure Southern cause I chill out on Budweiser while propped up in front of the boob tube watching NASCAR racing. I wrote a novel about murder in the world of Nextel Cup racing. The title is WHITE LIGHTNING. If that don't make me Southern, nothing will...
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The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature
Essays

Dilly Lee by Gaylynne Robinson

Maybe it’s a Texas thing, but whether I’m listening to guitar pickers under the big oak tree at Lukenbach on a Saturday afternoon, or cruising the aisles looking for bargains at Fredericksburg Market Days or watching fish jump in Oso Bay down in Corus Christi, or swimming at the dam in Hunt, Texas belongs to me, and I belong to it. This is my kind of south. Now I once had a friend from Tennessee who disputed the “south-ness” of Texas. I will attest to its southwesterness, being just a couple of miles down the road from George Strait’s horse barn, but it’s south all right. But Texas is “southern” in its love for land and its history. In my south, you can trust a cowboy. You can serve your company beans and jalapeño cornbread on your best China. Saturday night’s for wearing your broken in boots to listen to Willie and dance at Floore’s Country Store. In my south, people aren’t too busy to talk about nothing. You get the friendly finger wave driving down any country road and you can call up the corner grocery and ask if they have any fresh tamales. In my south, we sit outside on the porch at Halloween and watch out for our neighbors’ kids. In my south Texas sky, you can still see the ripe orange moon sitting pretty in a nest of stars. We might laugh at ourselves during a watermelon seed spitting contest or a sandbelt tool race, but we love our flag and our earth and our “southern” way of life. Gaylynne Robinson
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The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature
Fiction

Trash by Markus Jones

Fixing cattle fences after tree falls and winter winds makes a mess of everything just so I get chance at Joe’s fried mountain oysters isn’t the only reason to live in the southern Appalachians, but it’s a damn good one. Markus Egeler Jones is professor of English and Creative Writing at Lincoln University in Jefferson City, Missouri.
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The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature
Fiction

Danny Says–a vignette by AS Coomer

I'm a native Kentuckian currently riding out a purgatorial existence in the arctic Midwestern abyss. I catch glimpses of the bluegrass sometimes, when the sun is exceptionally blinding and making a rare appearance. I can still feel the cool Nolin River on my feet when I slip out of my snow-soaked boots. When I sink the shovel into the mounds of winter-refuse I can still--sometimes--imagine I'm actually just raking the burning leaves of my parents' backyard trees.
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The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature
Fiction

Rose by Shari Barnett

It is a quiet portrait of a Southern marriage during the influenza epidemic in the early 20th century. It is nearly the exact opposite of another story I had published in Brevity about meeting Frank Sinatra in Las Vegas in 1983 while dressed as a life size Pac Man. Breadth, right?
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Fiction

What Happened to My Brother by Daniel Leach

Dan Leach’s short fiction has been published in various literary journals and magazines, including The Greensboro Review, Deep South Magazine, and The New Madrid Review. A native of South Carolina, he graduated from Clemson University in 2008, and taught high-school in Charleston until 2014 when he relocated to Nebraska. Floods and Fires, his debut short-story collection, will be published by University of North Georgia Press in 2016
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Essays

Bill Prince: The Boy, The Buck Rabbit and the Beagles

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I am an eighth generation direct descendant of a 1740 immigrant who came to America as an indentured servant to the Trustees of the colony of Georgia. I was born in Valdosta, GA and have lived in either Georgia or South Carolina all my life. Reared and educated in South Carolina, I have been residing back in my native Georgia for over 50 years now. I am legitimately southern in my origin and life and lifestyle.
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The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature
Essays

James K. Williamson: The Night I Saw Dwayne

We ask questions in Darlington County, S.C. and those questions are to make sure we're not related, me and you. Porch nights in Oxford but only a few minutes over Barry Hannah's grave. It's hotter than hell and far. Mortician and poodle meet ups in Birmingham. Delirius drives from Little Rock to Asheville, you name it. I'm looking for a sawdust floor in New York City and someone to buy me a drink. I have carpal tunnel so you might have to lift the glass. Hey, I'm just glad to be here.
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The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature
Fiction

Jennifer Green “Keeping a Dead Mule Down”

Southern Legacy Statement – Half Mexican, Half Redneck. I use that to describe my heritage. Upon hearing that: my mother's family gets upset and offended, my father's side laughs and hollers. I'll let you decide which is half is which half. From ages three to eighteen, one year of my life was spent in Southern California, the next in North Georgia. The odd-numbered years were in smoggy cities, people giving me odd looks for ordering sugar in my tea, and mocking me when I say “ya'll.” I was fired from my first California job because customers insisted I insulted them by saying “sir” and “ma'am.” When I got older: I chose fresh air in the woods, people that became your new best friend when you share the counter at Waffle House, and smiles when I reply to statements with “sho'nuff.” Now, I'm the boss and all my employees know full well to treat all customers with respect and address them with “sir” and “ma'am.”
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The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature
Poetry

Suzan Phillips : 2010 Poetry

Suzan Phillips Southern Legitimacy Statement Ma-Ma would take Bo and me digging for sassafras roots in the woods next door. She would boil the roots and then we would drink the hot "tea" 'cause Aint Essie said it would keep ya reglar."She stopped a horse from bleedin', ya know? Tom Waters brought his horse over, pourin' blood outa his neck. Aint Essie went 'round the back of the house and when she come back, that horse 'ad stopped bleedin'.” We dug potatoes, too. She had on her lipstick and floral print dress. As soon as we came out of the garden, she put her heels back on - black patent leather - and put the potatoes on to boil. "We havin' old timey pataters and lemon marengue pie." She watched wrestling while she ironed the sheets. Then she took me over to Aint Correll's. We were going to get my wart taken off. I was five. We drove round a dirt driveway up to a little house and an old man came out. Flowers everywhere and trees and a bench swing hanging on a rusty old swing set. They talked a minute and then he gently asked me to go sit with him on the swing. He held a leaf in his hand, twirling it round between his finger and thumb. "Suzan, this hyere's a peach leaf. Come off 'at peach tree righttare." Silence. "D'you b'lieve I can take off that wort from your hand, thare?" "Yessir" "Well, hold out chur hand and lemme just rub this leaf hyere on yer wort, like this. See. Now, when you wake up tomorra, yur wort's gonna be gone. D'you b'lieve me, Suzan?" "Yessir." My wort was gone the next day. I think my southern legitimacy is evident!
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