The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature – Page 5 – No good Southern writing is complete without a dead mule. Established 1996.

Ashley Elizabeth Hewitt :: Woodsia Lane ::

Southern Legitimacy Statement: Born in Jackson, Mississippi, I attended Millsaps College and more recently completed my MFA in Creative Writing at the Mississippi University for Women. I have lived in New Orleans for twenty years but built a log cabin...

Blog The River of Strange

What’s the Collard situation?

Are you Southern? Then you know what I’m talking about here. Collards. The Collard Man, who sold his produce at the corner of Bridge Street and Third died this year. For months, a large white bow with a lovely silk floral...

Poetry

David Kirby :: My Hometown ::

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I spent the first twenty-four years of my life in the South, so when I started looking for jobs, I decided I’d live anywhere but. I ended up with five job offers, all in Southern cities. I remember...

Creative Non-Fiction

Rory Squires :: A Love Letter to Humanity ::

SLS: My mother’s extended family originated in West Virginia, so half of the family has accents. While I live in Pennsylvania, I can still point out and label the southern states, and I adore the Waffle House. *Ya’ll need to...

Creative Non-Fiction

Kayla Branstetter :: Changing Directions ::

Southern Legitimacy Statement: On your website, you stated “Let the bitter past be studied–not re-lived.” “Changing Directions” mirrors that southern attitude because Tony allowed me to interview her about her bitter past for others to study in hopes they will...

Fiction Flash Fiction

Christopher S. Bell :: Stream ::

Southern Legitimacy Statement: My South is steam rising up from the lake water and a wealth of abandoned antiquieties sitting on shelves, thier paint slowly fading from the heat. It’s an empty space that flakes like skin and haunts from...

Poetry

Raymond Berthelot :: Three Poems ::

And of course I’m a Southern writer geographically, and socially I’d imagine. Somebody has got to be on the outside, and if I am to be out, I’d rather be South of out. Three Poems Absences We’ll cook the black...

Creative Non-Fiction

Cynthia Gilmore :: My Boobs at Sixty ::

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I moved south kicking and screaming in 2015 with my partner, a leg man. He stalks women on the balmy South Carolina coast where I left him, while I’ve made a peaceful home in the mountains of...

Fiction

David Newdorf :: Amor vincit omnia ::

I was born, raised, educated, married, raised kids, and divorced south of the Mason Dixon line — just a few thousand miles away on the the West Coast. At other times, I’ve lived in South Florida, partied in NOLA, been...

Creative Non-Fiction

David VanDevelder :: A Requiem for Grandmother Tree ::

Southern Legitimacy Statement: We were a prototypical southern nuclear family. My Papaw came up in the Great Smokey Mountains, near Farner, Tennessee and Cherokee, North Carolina. When he was nine, he lost track of the time one summer evening, squirrel...