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On Being a Southern Writer

Because my father is a native New Yorker and my mother is from Georgia, where I have spent most of my life, I have never felt comfortable with the we/they dichotomy. Even if I could, I would prefer not to choose between these two identities: I am both. I am like Laurie Lee's fabulous two-headed sheep, which could "sing harmoniously in a double voice and cross-question itself for hours."

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