Editorial Statement
Southern Legends is a regional editorial platform for the Southern diaspora. We publish essays, profiles, and community voices from Northeast Alabama and the people who left, what they carried, and what they came back with.
We are not a newspaper. We are not a blog. We are a publication — with a masthead, a point of view, and contributors who know the territory from the inside.
Our thesis: the people who stayed built something. The people who left carry something. That intersection is where the real stories live.
Matt Headley is the founding editor. He has lived in Northeast Alabama for twenty-eight years. He was born somewhere else. That tension is the whole thing.
Contributors
Arts & Theater
Jason Wright
Jason Wright builds sets, stages plays, and knows where every artist in Calhoun County is hiding. His lens is the stage — what performance reveals about a community.
writstuf@bellsouth.net
Journalism & Arts
Donna Barton
Donna Barton is the faith and arts editor at the Anniston Star. She has covered Northeast Alabama's cultural life for decades. She knows which stories the paper has room for — and which ones need more space.
donnafbarton@gmail.com
Business & Community
Cher Dulaney
Cher Dulaney runs the Calhoun County Chamber of Commerce. She knows the economic texture of Northeast Alabama — who is building, who is holding on, and who just opened something worth knowing about.
cher@calhounchamber.com
Pastoral & Community
Kyle Bryan
Kyle Bryan is at Anniston First UMC. He works at the intersection of faith, neighborhood, and civic life — the part of Anniston that doesn't show up in economic development reports.
kyle@annistonfirst.info
Music & Arts
Jean Ellison
Jean Ellison runs The Music Box on Noble Street. She has taught music in Anniston for years and plays in the Evergreens. Her lens is the cultural infrastructure that keeps a community alive.
Nonprofit & Outreach
Summer Jennings
Summer Jennings runs Jacksonville City Outreach. She works with people the economy has left behind — and she knows what actual community care looks like from the inside.
jaxoutreach36265@gmail.com
Florals & Wedding
Heather Headley
Heather Headley runs Heather Florals and the Bloom Bar. She knows the wedding and events economy of Northeast Alabama from the inside — and what it takes to build something that lasts.
Arts & Literary
Brodie Boyd
Brodie Boyd writes and works in the literary arts in Northeast Alabama. He is one of the few people in the region who treats the local as worthy of serious literary attention.
Your lens belongs here.
Southern Legends publishes contributors who know Northeast Alabama from the inside — writers, musicians, pastors, makers, journalists. Commission-only to start. A platform that pays when it earns.
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