The KISS Letter: An Encounter with Elvis

An article from Southern Cultures 17:4, The Music Issue

featuring the original letter by Eugenia Dettelbach Wicker

6 x 9

  • E-book EPUB ISBN: 978-0-8078-7257-4
    Published: December 2011
  • E-book PDF ISBN: 979-8-8908-4442-2
    Published: December 2011

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Distributed for the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Center for the Study of the American South

“The last time I kissed him he only had on half a shirt. He has a wonderful chest. I am really crazy about him now+have the funniest feeling in me, all over.”

After she saw the King in concert and met him backstage, she wrote this letter to her friends at camp. Here’s the original spicy note from the teenage girl who kissed—and kissed—Elvis Presley.

This article appears in the 2011 Music issue of Southern Cultures.

Southern Cultures is published quarterly (spring, summer, fall, winter) by the University of North Carolina Press. The journal is sponsored by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s Center for the Study of the American South.

About the Author

Marcie Cohen Ferris is Associate Professor and Director of Undergraduate Studies in the Department of American Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She is the author most recently of Matzoh Ball Gumbo: Culinary Tales of the Jewish South (University of North Carolina Press, 2005), which was nominated for the James Beard Foundation Award and recognized by the International Association of Culinary Professionals with their Jane Grigson Award. She is currently writing “The Edible South: Food and History in an American Region.”
For more information about Marcie Cohen Ferris, visit the Author Page.