The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature
Poetry

Helen Vitoria – Two poems

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I spent years vacationing in the South, visiting friends, relatives, and have always been taken by it’s unique charm and history. In the recent past, I spent countless hours as a disaster relief volunteer in Louisiana and Mississippi, my work in shelters after hurricane Katrina has left me to feel that the South will always be part of my life.
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The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature
Poetry

Sylvie Galloway – Two Acrostic Poems

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I am certainly what you would call a southern woman. I grew up in East Tennessee, married then moved to the Western North Carolina mountains then moved even further south to the upstate of South Carolina. Now divorced, I attend a small southern woman’s college while wading hip deep through the world of perm rods, hair spray and tease combs. Hairdressing keeps the mortgage payments current, and my asthma doctor's budget in the black. I live in a world where ya'll is a token word in most conversations, ice tea is strong and harmful to one's pancreas and grits is considered one of the four essential food groups. I also live in a world, that although I've been called a southern gal all my life, I don't always feel like I fit in. Maybe that's from being nerdy, somewhat bookish, and exhibiting no real talent or interest for sports of any kind, fishing, hunting, beauty contesting, baton twirling, clogging, shagging, or the baking or the frying of southern culinary delights. I also couldn't tell you who is in the running for this year's NASCAR driver of the year award if my life depended on it. But where else but here in the south can you get peaches and strawberries picked fresh that morning? Where else does the hint of snow send two thirds of the county scrambling to the grocery for a week of supplies? Where else can one spend the summer partaking in the battle of trying to get something to grow in your backyard besides fire ant colonies? What I am is woman who lives in a place I can't imagine ever leaving. I raised my kids here, my grand-kids were born here. My four cats were deposited upon my doorstep here. I'm a southern woman, and quite content with the label. Now can someone pass me a glass of that iced tea? I'm rather parched.
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The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature
Poetry

William Cullen Jr.: “A Long Good bye”

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I was born in Petersburg, VA during the Korean War and lived there for the first few years of my life. Later on during the mid-seventies, I lived in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. I was stationed for a while in the army at Fort Benning, GA. My wife was born and raised in Savannah. My parents and several of my siblings live in Florida and Virginia. My best memory of the South was a week-long camping trip I made to the Smoky Mountains in the seventies.
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The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature
Fiction

Tended by Laura Seaborn

Southern Legitimacy Statement: Moving to Florida when I was sixteen, we crossed the border under the shadow of a billboard which read, "This is Wallace Country." I turned to my mother and asked who Wallace was. I had a lot to learn about The South. Now, I'll slip in a ya'll once in a while and I love grits and Southern Magnolia blooms, but I still hate gators and that horrid kudzu.
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The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature
Fiction

At Morganza’s Gates by Lucinda Kemp

Southern Legitimacy Statement: My Mama celebrated the birth of my son by having her picture taken in front of the Jefferson Davis Memorial stone on First and Coliseum Streets around the corner from her house in the Garden District. When she died, I put her ashes in a Ziplock bag and flew her to La Guardia. Today she’s shelved in an urn of her breakfront in my house on Long Island. My black Labrador named Comus—in honor of the parade (Mama was a Comus maid)—has never been down south.
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The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature
Fiction

Chrissie’s Parent’s Bed by Elizabeth Glass

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I was born when mama was making Benedictine and daddy was drinking a Mint Julep. They were supposed to be at The Derby, and they had fine outfits. Mama had a long white dress with embroidered flowers and a huge white hat with flowers—lots and lots of yellow, pink, and white flowers. Daddy had a seersucker suit with a smart straw hat. Mama handed the Benedictine over to Granny Bray, who had come to stay with Sister. Daddy lit his pipe and said, “For this, I’m missing the Derby,” then smiled with his blue eyes and lifted my mama and carried her to the car.
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The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature
Fiction

Killing Nighttime by Brad McLelland

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I'm one of those South Arkansas kids, born and raised in the cotton fields of Chicot County and weaned on sweet tea and fried chocolate pies. I'm one of those kids who has slapped a jillion mosquitoes dead on my neck, and combed my legs for a jillion seed ticks, and fought a jillion G.I. Joes in the trenches of my rain-washed back yard gulley. In my youth, when I wasn't outracing three-legged coon dogs on three-wheeled ATVs (me on the wheeler, not the dog), I was cane-pole fishing in the 43 Canal, down near Grandma Bernice's house in the swarmy Dermott Delta. Under Grandma's dusty quilt I learned to read and write, and on the brown banks of the swimming hole I learned that a good story can sometimes be one of Dad's good ol' fishing lies.
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The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature
Fiction

A Suburban Story by Wayne Scheer

Southern Legitimacy Statement: Although I was raised in New York and lived in Iowa for five years, I saw nothing strange in a local newscaster breaking into the TV show I was watching to warn us about the quarter inch of snow predicted overnight.
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The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature
Fiction

Polar Bears Don’t Cry by Isaac Kirkman

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I consider myself very much a southern writer, and my work generally revolves around illuminating the social struggles of where I am from. If this particular piece is not for you I look forward to submitting to you in the future and continue the courtship. Have a wonderful day.
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The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature
Essays

Snakes in the Kitchen by Donald Harbour

Southern Legitimacy Statement: Being Southerner is a frame of mind. A view of the world, neighbors, friends and family filtered through words, thoughts, and deeds of the people that have raised you. I was fortunate to have grandparents that lived a Southern life in Arkansas where I have lived off and on since 1948. Grandpa taught me how to plow a field with a team of mules, what leaves and herbs to gather from the woods and fields to make healing poultices and teas. Grandma taught that hands were for gentle touches, caring for those you love, and cooking the best pan of biscuits any human has ever eaten. There is a lot more but when I think back over 68 years my memories are of those simple things that have shaped my life and given me the values of a Southern man. What a great way to live.
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