Mid/South Contributors: Emily Key

Learn more about one of the essay writers in our Mid/South Anthology

Emily Key is a true delight. I was excited to receive this essay for our first anthology and have enjoyed getting to know her over the past year. For those who are also familiar with Harrison Scott Key (one of our personal favorites in the Belle Point household), it was a special bonus to learn that Emily is his mother! We love seeing writers devote time and energy to their craft at any and all life stages, and we hope you’ll check out Emily’s moving essay about a painful childhood memory in the Mississippi Delta. She’ll also join us for our upcoming “Deep South” Zoom reading, so don’t forget to sign up!

Name: Emily Simmons Key

Current Location: Savannah, GA

Twitter: @EmilyKey47

Bio: Emily Key lives in Savannah, GA. She is an educator, prefers musicals over plays, loves deeply, treasures her family, and cooks against her will. She enjoys reading and history and reading about history. She’s an artist sometimes. Her work has appeared in Free Flash Fiction and Paragraph Planet.

1. Is there anything else you’d like us to know about your work that will appear in the anthology? 

The piece is based on my memories of the emotional impact my parents’ divorce had on me at the age of four. Everything I understood became everything I didn’t understand.  

2. How would you describe your work overall? Do you have other publications you’d like us to highlight? 

My writing career is in its infancy. Your acceptance of my story is such an encouragement. Now I will see where this takes me. So far, the pieces I write are based on my own feelings and experiences. More nonfiction than fiction. 

3. How does the Mid-South and/or larger Southern region influence your perspective (personally and/or in your writing)? 

I’m as Southern as I can be through and through—born in Vicksburg, MS and raised in Rolling Fork and Greenwood. The Delta: rich in cotton and Southern culture. A past which has pushed us into a better present where the healing continues. I have a fierce loyalty to my birthplace while acknowledging its tortured history. 

4. What do you wish more people knew about this area? 

I would like for people to understand that the South of the present is not the South of the past.  Stereotypes still exist even in these enlightened times.  This region is beyond rich in its people, culture, and contributions to American society and the world.

If you haven’t yet, get your copy of our anthology here and sign up for the reading to come hear Emily and three other contributors: Tuesday, 3/21, at 7pm Central via Zoom.