Volume 1 now available!
Posted by John on February 17, 2010
I’m gonna spend a little time over the next day or so re-arranging things so you can easily get to the contributors and their work, but for now, here’s a PDF version of Red Dirt Review, Volume 1. I’m thrilled with the content we’ve pulled together in a short time, and the poetry, prose and photography here runs the whole gamut from sweet to salty to downright dirty, just like life. So feel free to download the magazine and pass it around. Just shoot us an email at editor@reddirtreview and let us know what you think. So I’ve now added tabs for issues and contributors, and I’ll spend a little time working on a links page so you can get to everybody’s websites, too.
I’ve also decided that this will be a quarterly publication, because if I try to do this every month all on my own I won’t ever get anything written, or do my day job, or get any drinking done, which is the most important thing. So we’re open to submissions for our June issue as of right now, so get ‘em in there!
There will be print copies available for sale both here and from Lulu, the printer. If you want to buy one from here, click the PayPal button -
If you wanna order them from the printer, click the link here. It might be a buck or two cheaper to get ‘em from me, but it’ll probably be a day or two quicker to buy ‘em from Lulu.
Instructions for use:
1) Click on the pic to download Volume 1.
2) Print it, or don’t, it’s up to you.
3) Pop a beer.
4) Sit on porch.
5) Turn on a Johnny Cash album.
6) Read.
7) Drink.
Repeat as necessary.
Filed Under: Fiction, Poetry - Comments: 4 Comments to Read
Better Home – John G. Hartness
Posted by John on January 22, 2010
Better Home
He set his banjo on a peach crate,
picked up a mason jar,
tore himself off a slash and said,
“Sing for me, Vera.”
Her voice wavered like a robin’s song,
high and clear across the smoke-filled room
and everybody drew still as Grandma sang gospel.
“I was standing, by my window,
on one cold and cloudy day”
Grandaddy’s fingers skipped across the banjo strings
like Mama through a Carolina cotton field,
bare feet kicking clods of red dirt
while her patchwork dress
snagged on branches,
snatchin’ notes out of the air like
Grandma’s song floating through the kitchen
while she fixed collards for Sunday dinner.
“Will the circle be unbroken,
By and by, Lord, by and by.”
The whiskey stole his fingers,
hard living and twelve children stilled her voice.
There was no music in them
by the time I came along,
but every once in a while,
when I played freeze tag with my cousins
in the back yard and hid behind the laundry
hanging out in the sun to dry,
a bird would carry back a hint of melody,
and I could hear the song
in Grandma’s eyes as she stood at the sink
washing dishes
and watching the kids play in the yard.
“There’s a better home a-waiting,
in the sky, lord, in the sky.”
Filed Under: Poetry - Comments: Read the First Comment
Hello world!
Posted by John on January 21, 2010
Welcome to the Red Dirt Review. We’re a new literary journal based in Charlotte, NC and focusing on the best in Southern (yeah, I know, redneck) poetry, fiction and non-fiction. Our (my) grand plan is to have a great contest (go to the contest page for details) that pays for itself and covers the cost of printing a semi-annual literary magazine in hard copy. I’m also planning on publishing a monthly edition here online, in bloggy format until I figure out a better way. So check out our About Us page for submission info, and send me your poems and stories about life in the South.
Filed Under: Uncategorized - Comments: Read the First Comment
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