I’m Gulf Coastal Southern and most of the time my stories are flavored with southernisms. Rick Bragg recently noted in Southern Living that the way to tell if you’re a true southern writer inducted into the canon is if you have a tale that includes a dead mule somewhere. To set the record straight…

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How did a woman from the Deep South who writes stories about her grandma’s china and a woman from Texas who writes books like Messalina, Devourer of Men end up producing an anthology to benefit volunteers working on the Gulf Coast Oil Spill? And by the way we’ve never laid eyes on one another…

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I was really surprised to see my comment about my grandmother in the She Writes daily post. To be completely honest I didn't click on it until today so I had no idea why a couple of people seemed to friend me out of the blue and why suddenly there was so much activity on our group. It all stems from my Grandmother, Azolene Pickens.



My mother, whom I admire and mostly resemble is an amazing woman but she's no Betty Crocker. When I was born she was working for the United Nations as… Continue