Barbara McLay: Kneadful Things (February 2019)
Southern Legitimacy Statement: I was born and raised in Florida and am still living here, two miles from Georgia. My dad and grandparents were also native Floridians, and I can’t find an ancestor who was born or lived north of the...
Chen Du: Catch the Train (February 2019)
Southern Legitimacy Statement: Yes, I lived so close to where you do. I studied at Wake Forest University for nearly two months… I like that area greatly. The weather has a kind of healing effect. I was seriously compromised before...
Vivian Wagner: Appalachian Edge (February 2019)
Here’s my Southern Legitimacy Statement: I live in southeastern Ohio. That counts, doesn’t it? After all, maybe being southern is a more a state of mind more than an actual place. And, anyway, this place where I live? It sure...
Allison Chestnut: Queen For a Day (memoir) Dec. 2018
Southern Literacy statement: I am a spinster with a Bible and a gun who grew up reading Fannie Flagg, Jerry Clower and Lewis Grizzard. I have seen a squirrel get loose in a Baptist church. I have ridden a mule...
Geoff Balme : Quadrophenia (memoir) Dec. 2018
I’ve published with you a couple of times, but I don’t mind updating my SOUTHERN Legit statement. I identify weeds, mushrooms, trees, bugs, and wildflowers. I’m fond of dwarf irises, rue anenomes, foam flowers and, of course, hen of the...
Marijean Oldham : Airline Lost and Found (memoir) Dec. 2018
My Southern Legitimacy is in evidence when I tell you that yesterday I wore a dress and stockings to attend a ladies’ tea party where we drank champagne all afternoon. Most of the ladies are aging exotic dancers, and had...
Lynda Black: Love Lesson #6 – Room At The Inn (essay/memoir) Nov. 2018
Southern Legitimacy Statement: I grew up in North Carolina, within six miles of the land where my ancestor settled in the 1700s. Lacking frequent snow fall as children, my siblings, cousins, and I improvised. We used dried horse manure in our...
Brandon Burris: Next Door (essay) Nov. 2018
Southern Legitimacy Statement: I’ve lived in Oklahoma almost my whole life. People who know nothing sometimes call Oklahoma the “Midwest,” but we say y’all here and eat gravy and know the importance of good manners, so every good Okie is a...
Philip Boddy, Jr.: Ecumenical Challenges (Memoir) Nov. 2018
Southern Legitimacy Statement: Born in Chicago with maternal grandparents, who went back to the drawing board for childcare, probably saved me from a stint in Joliet. Mom was a “wild-child” in the late 1930’s and early 1940’s. Nana solved that by...
Dennis Mitton: One By One. Each In Turn. Sans One. (essay/memoir) Nov. 2018
Southern Legitimacy Statement: I’m an ex-pat from Seattle and still miss the mind-your-own-business culture of my home and never, ever get used to waving to strangers or to tucking in my polo. But there is an honor and a history and...
Meredith Baker: Daddy’s Home (memoir) Oct 2018
Southern Legitimacy Statement: I’m a debutant, a beachcomber, and a native of South Carolina. The place of my most vivid memories was my grandmother’s farm — shucking corn, snapping beans, and hand-churning peach ice cream. Daddy’s Home It’s 5:00 and today,...
Dwight Watson: Zero Degree Gravity (memoir) Oct 2018
Southern Legitimacy Statement: Now retired, I devoted the past thirty-six years teaching at Wabash College in Crawfordsville, Indiana. But I was born in Johnston County, raised in Burlington, responded to frequent calls from Emerald Isle, the lower island of the...
Elodie Pritchartt: A Hollow Space (Essay) Sept 2018
Southern Legitimacy Statement: I was born by the river — the Mississippi River, that is, and in its oldest city, Natchez. I and my family are Southern Gothic with the humidity to prove it. We’ve got suicides, antebellum homes, wealth, poverty,...
Deanna Benjamin: Pleiades (essay/memoir)
Southern Legitimacy Statement: In 2004, after living in Savannah, Georgia, for three years, a stray dog wandered into my front yard. I guided him to the back yard by his blue collar. My other half printed out “Found Dog” posters...
Step and Do Not Step (memoir)
Southern Legitimacy Statement: I grew up in a small town in South Carolina among the rivers and pines and sandy dirt roads. My mother, a French Huguenot from Charleston, SC, taught me that we have the ocean in our blood...
Poetry
Essays
