Category: Essays

Essays

Mitzi Dorton: Essay: May 2022

My Southern Legitimacy Statement: We’ll stop right up here in just a little bit and get us a biscuit. All Things Watermelon I am a southerner, but I have to add not in all things, just where certain comfort foods...
Essays

Nwenna Kai: Essay: May 2022

Southern Legitimacy Statement: By way of Africa, my people come from rice fields, tobacco, moonshine, and North Carolina oppressive sweat and heat. One of my great great grandmothers I am told was a 12 years young slave who was sold...
Essays

Jessica Bates: Memoir: March 2022

Southern Legitimacy Statement: My people hail from Tennessee, and I grew up in my grandpa’s kitchen, with a shotgun in the corner and a bowl of reused flour where he made catheads from scratch. When the Dead One Fell From...
Essays

Jeremy Tavares: Memoir: March 2022

Southern Legitimacy Statement: Jeremy Tavares is a poet and writer of gritty fiction. He lives with his wife and son in Austin, Texas. Salvation is Scarier than Damnation Religion was scary in Middle Mississippi. It was a thing to be...
Essays

Peggy Rothbaum: Memoir: Feb 2022

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I have lived in the South for 4 generations. I went to college and lived in Chapel Hill for 5 years. This was considered “north”. I did come North and have been here now for decades. I...
Essays

Marsha Owens: Memoir: Feb 2022

Southern Legitimacy Statement: Born in Richmond, VA, I’ve made it my forever home. My paternal grandpa was a waterman on the Chesapeake Bay, and to this day, I’m a seafood snob. I married an ex-Amishman to whom all things Southern...
Essays

Nathan Webb: Memoir: Feb 2022

Southern Legitimacy Statement: Having moved out of the South for the first time in my life, The Dead Mule has been instrumental in alleviating homesickness. It’s been a great reminder of why I consider the South home. As far as...
Essays

Erin Savage: Memoir: Feb 2022

Southern legitimacy statement: My parents dragged me away from the home I loved in Louisville, to put down roots in the frigid Midwest. My time residing in Louisville, the home of my earliest memories, was well spent though. When I...
Essays

Tom Wade: Essay: Jan 2022

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I grew up in Missouri and moved to Georgia almost fifty years ago as a VISTA (Volunteers in Service to America) volunteer. After over three decades of service, I retired from Georgia state government. Would They Do...
Essays

Michele Davis: Memoir: Jan 2022

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I have almost always lived in the South (Southern Maryland, Southern India, Southern Florida, and Southern California). Give me an afternoon under live oak trees dripping with swaying Spanish moss, sweet tea, and a good book, and...
Essays

KD Smith: Creative Non-Fiction: Jan 2022

Southern Legitimacy Statement: “Stop bein’ ugly or I’ll paint your back porch red.” Jerked from the reverence of a funeral graveside prayer because the fire ants have crawled into your sandals, driving nails into your feet. Sitting on the porch...
Essays

Shelia Arnold: Memoir: Jan 2022

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I’ve lived in West Tennessee all of my life, and though I believe myself to be the most polished of my siblings, I still have quite a bit of residue on me. My six brothers and I...
Essays

Matthew Stokes: Memoir: Jan 2022

Southern Legitimacy Statement: My first cousin initially said it and has reminded me often, “You know where your roots are.” His words were in response to my living and teaching in northern China for two years. I was born in...