For the past decade, Dixon Hearne has been one of the quiet heroes of American letters. Widely published in literary journals and reviews, he always leaves his readers with that feeling of being satisfied yet wanting more. Plantatia is full of familiar people and places—a wisteria-bound and oak-shaded South comprised of honky tonks, corner stores, mills, and revival churches populated by drunks, gossips, and scandalous preachers—part yarn and part folk in a way that is reminiscent of Zora Neale Hurston. I highly recommend Plantatia for aficionados of Southern literature but also for all readers who simply like a good story well told. Darien Cavanaugh, editor, Yemassee

Plantatia: High-toned and Low-down Stories of the South

Literature & Fiction

Hearne, Dixon

Short Stories & Anthologies

Southeast Missouri State Univ Press

Stories, Memoirs, and Poetry Dixon Hearne has captured the sounds and smells of Christmas past in this heartwarming collection of poems and stories that reflect the true meaning of the holiday in the South.   --Erin Z. Bass, Editor, Deep South Magazine In this nostalgic collection, Dixon Hearne masterfully weaves together stories, memoir, and poetry-and concludes with several classic Christmas tales. Hearne's stories are not linked by character or plot, but are instead sewn tightly with his gift for voice and vernacular, and stunning ability to evoke the spirit of Christmas. It is a journey readers will enjoy year-round.   --Vallie Lynn Watson, author, A River so Long Dixon Hearne has written a warm book infused with the sights, smells, and sounds of the past, when togetherness and simple gifts brought families closer.  When Christmas Was Real will remind some readers of the times they miss, while younger readers will experience the times they missed out on.   --Angus Woodward, author, Down at the End of the River and Americanisation Award-winning author, Dixon Hearne, takes us back in time to Christmas past, much like the ghost took Scrooge . . . Touching, poignant moments, making it a book to read year after year-to remind us all to be thankful for what we have.   --Regina Williams, Editor, The Storyteller Magazine

When Christmas was Real

Literary

AWOC.COM

From the piney hills of northern Louisiana to the raw and decadent streets of New Orleans, Delta Flats: Stories in the Key of Blues and Hope records the daily lives of its characters with a poetic rhythm that evokes the ebb and flow of life itself. Dixon Hearne is a master at capturing the “blue reality” of life, moments―both large and small―that define the hot days and long nights of the deep south. With language as gritty as the blues and as beautiful as a gospel choir, he juxtaposes the downtrodden with the hopeful and the darkness with the light and plays out each story with deft, lyrical descriptions that make the reader want to laugh and sing with joy.

Delta Flats: Stories In The Key Of Blues And Hope

United States

Walrus Publishing

For many years, I have regarded the literary voice of Dixon Hearne as one of the most distinguished voices of the American South. After reading Plainspeak: New and Selected Poems, however, I quickly realized that his poetic voice is equally effective in capturing the very essence of the American West: its native peoples, flora, fauna, and starkly beautiful landscapes. In this remarkable collection of poetry, Hearne writes of the Apache, Crow, Lakota, Anasazi, Caddo, and the "crying voices" of the Choctaw on the Trail of Tears. He writes of the wind whispering through the skulls of countless buffalo slaughtered almost to extinction. If the vast landscapes of the West could speak, they would do so in a spare, highly skilled, and powerfully evocative voice like Hearne's. —Larry D. Thomas, Member, Texas Institute of Letters, 2008 Texas Poet Laureate 
 Dixon Hearne can gaze at a barren southern or southwestern landscape and sense the presence of those who lived there in the past, human and animal spirits alike. In these life-affirming poems, he reminds us of our sacred duty to be “keepers of Mother Earth, not despoilers of it. —Julie Kane, 2011-2013 Louisiana Poet Laureate 
 It’s truly rare to find a poet equally adept at illuminating both physical and emotional topographies. Poem after poem, Dixon Hearne’s Plainsong: New and Selected Poems unearths truths of human life and of American landscape in a journey from lush Appalachia, through the wetlands of Louisiana, and into the native life of the American west. His lines pop with the rattle of a snake’s tail and flow like tufted clouds across blue skies. Whether describing a bighorn clash or the sadness of a lonely rainfall, Hearne’s is an art driven by passion, clarity, and respect for what makes us human. —Jack B. Bedell, author of Elliptic and Bone-Hollow, True: New &amp; Selected Poems
 Plainspeak is vintage Dixon Hearne. He is a landscape painter whose palate is poetry and his subject is Mother Earth from her swamplands and bayous and the majestic Mississippi to the canyons and deserts of her west. His poems reverence the Earth's "ancient seedlings" and the heavens above in their "pastel tiers" but they also explore the "tableau of seasons" where we see how change--natural and human--has influenced her and us along with it. Among the "chards of history" that Hearne uncovers are elegiac reminders of disappearing tribes and roads. But above and through it all, Hearne assures us there are places still "haunted with beauty." Emerson and Whitman both would enjoy Hearne's paintings. —Philip C. Kolin, co-editor of Down to the Dark River, Univ. Distinguished Prof. (Emeritus)

Plainspeak: New & Selected Poems

Poetry

Kelsay Books

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