Gary Charles Wilkens
I am Southern because I was born in the South (Charleston, South Carolina), raised in the South (North Carolina and Arkansas), and currently live in the South. Futhermore, my poetry is thick with the influence of southern culture-music, food, places, religion, dialect, lifesyles, etc. The only thing about me that isn’t Southern is German, because I lived there for a number of years, and even then it was southern Germany (Stuttgart).

Marvin Vann
I tried to escape the South. Actually, my parents tried and pretty much succeeded, moving us to Alaska, where I grew up from the age of nine on. After itenerant student days in France and Oregon, I more less settled in a progressive town in the Northwest, where everybody thought like me and shared my values, and which I grew to hate. After receiving my teaching credentials, I moved my family back to Texas, partly to be nearer some ailing in-laws (my ex-wife grew up in Fort Worth and Lousiana), but mostly because I felt pulled by the Southern emphasis on community, maddening as it can be.

Mule Writers …
Also linked to from the About page.

Thomas Scott McKenzie
Mr. McKenzie interviews Dayne. Why is this significant? Not only is Dayne a kick ass writer, he kicked ass on the Dead Mule, early in his career.

Jerry Portwood
Southern Legitimacy Statement
I claim I’m a Southerner although I was born in South Florida, and we all know that doesn’t really count. I spent the better part of my life sleeping in the back of a pickup truck my dad tricked out with a carpeted cozy kit on long family road trips from Wichita Falls, Texas or Goldsboro, North Carolina. That was the life of a military family, never long enough anywhere to truly absorb the accent. A family who would eat bologna sandwiches at Mississippi rest areas before forking over a fortune at a McDonald’s. At least we always had time for the lake or a river, no matter if it turned your underwear and bathing suit brown. It seems I finally got the real deal credentials when my family finally settled in Valdosta, Georgia. Seems going that far south, even if you don’t pronounce pecan correctly, will get people believing you are a true Southerner. Although I am currently living in Barcelona, Spain, it seems all I can write about is all those Southern people I call family.