Another in our Series of Memoirs by Mule editor CL Bledsoe. Read on, my mule readers … read on. Feeding the Fish My Dad woke up, and woke me, before the sun, which is somethingRead more
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 theRead more
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.Read more
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 like to think that my writing has been influenced by… no, no, I won’t go there. I read and I write. What else to say? Enjoy.Read more
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 beingRead more
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 onRead more
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 taughtRead more
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 workedRead more
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 goRead more
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 a lightning bug circus. Wouldn’t live anywhere else.Read more
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 air while walking through a field near his home. Nor was his disappearance without witnesses. It was twilight. The afternoon sun had dropped behind the hills. Yet, even in the grainy light, David’s wife and children, sitting on the porch, saw him disappear.Read more
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 withRead more