"Red Dirt Memories is a tribute to a way of life that has almost disappeared as quickly as it began, taking you beyond pastures dotted with herds of cattle, past the hatchery, the feed mill, and then to the foot of Swift Hill, where a red dirt road winds down then up again for two miles. Then as now, a car raises a cloud of red dust to signal a visitor, where only a clearing is left of the pine shack it once held, with the smokehouse and the outhouse beyond long decayed and torn down. Wild honeysuckle has taken over the chimney remnants, and all the ghosts simply wait for the right moment to conjure their old memories in this timeless collection that reminds us of our similarities, rather than the differences that divide us."--Distributor's website
Blood on Red Dirt is the true story of Marine Corporal Gary Cowart. The book encompasses the time before enlistment, Boot Camp, Infantry Training Regiment, Artillery School, and his time in Vietnam during the Tet Offensive of 1968. Incorporated with actual pictures from the times and places remembered in this book, it gives the reader a mix of emotions felt during the good times and bad, of combat and of non-combat, with the intent of giving the lay person a more complete picture of the Vietnam experience. After serving in Vietnam, Dr. Cowart earned a B.A. degree in Zoology from the University of Washington, and a Doctor of Dental Surgery degree from the UW School of Dentistry He currently lives, writes, and maintains a general dental practice in Kent, Washington.
“Hieroglyphics is a novel that tugs at the deepest places of the human soul—a beautiful, heart-piercing meditation on life and death and the marks we leave on this world. It is the work of a wonderful writer at her finest and most profound.” —Jessica Shattuck, author of The Women in the Castle After many years in Boston, Lil and Frank have retired to North Carolina. The two of them married young, having bonded over how they both—suddenly, tragically—lost a parent when they were children. Now, Lil has become determined to leave a history for their own kids. She sifts through letters and notes and diary entries, uncovering old stories—and perhaps revealing more secrets than Frank wants their children to know. Meanwhile, Frank has become obsessed with the house he lived in as a boy on the outskirts of town, where a young single mother, Shelley, is now raising her son. For Shelley, Frank’s repeated visits begin to trigger memories of her own family, memories that she’d hoped to keep buried. Because, after all, not all parents are ones you wish to remember. Empathetic and profound, this novel from master storyteller Jill McCorkle deconstructs and reconstructs what it means to be a father or a mother, and to be a child trying to know your parents—a child learning to make sense of the hieroglyphics of history and memory.
The Caribbean is the source of one of the richest, most accessible, and yet technically adventurous traditions of contemporary world literature. This collection extends beyond the realm of English-speaking writers, to include stories published in Spanish, French, and Dutch. It brings together contributions from major figures such as V. S. Naipaul, and Gabriel Garcia Marquez, and work from the exciting new generation of Caribbean writers represented by Edwidge Danticat, and Jamaica Kincaid.
About the Book In From Red Dirt: An Autobiographical Narrative and Verse of a Georgia Son is a tribute to the Harlem Renaissance writer Jean Toomer, whose setting of the novel Cane (1923) begins in rural Sparta, Georgia. This location is approximately 70 miles from the author’s hometown of Augusta. While the book is autobiographical, Briggs uses both a narrative and poetry format to describe and reflect on significant phases of his childhood, educational, interpersonal, and professional experiences, and recent visit to Kenya with Abokin, a group of missionaries endorsed by his church. This unique narrative will be quite intriguing to the individual who values the importance of family and interpersonal relationships but experiences immense challenges, knowingly and unknowingly, within those relationships. Briggs’s story presents his own perspective on growing up in the segregated South of the 1950s and 1960s, reveals how our individual decisions may impact our lives, and explores God’s purpose for all of us if we should choose to be patient and to listen to Him. About the Author Cordell A. Briggs is a product of Seventh-day Adventist higher education and Historically Black Colleges and Universities. He graduated from Oakwood University, Andrews University, and Howard University. Briggs is Professor Emeritus of English at Moreno Valley College, Riverside Community College District, in Riverside, California. Throughout his forty-year career in higher education, he taught English, American literature, African American literature, and linguistics at the community college and university levels. Briggs has two wonderful and successful adult children. He has three delightful grandsons and one precious granddaughter. He has spent much of his time lately being involved with Abokin, Inc., the SDA missionary group that does volunteer work in the areas of evangelism, health care ministry, and education in Africa.
Ruby Fae realizes she made a terrible decision two years ago when she dropped out of college to marry the sweet-faced JW and join his traveling evangesist family on the road. Now she's living on a bus with her in-laws and trapped in a never-ending revival tour. Homesick and worried for her baby daughter, Ruby is desperate to get back to Oklahoma.
