Delta Flats

Publisher: Walrus Publishing

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. 

Dixon Hearne teaches and writes in the American South. Much of his work draws on his memories of growing up along the graceful river traces and bayous in West Monroe, Louisiana. After years of university teaching and writing for research journals, his interests turned to fiction and poetry—and the challenge of writing in a different voice.

He is the author of several recent books, including Native Voices, Native Lands and Plantatia: High-toned and Lowdown Stories of the South, which was nominated for the Hemingway Foundation/PEN award and won the Creative Spirit Award-Platinum for best general fiction book. His work has been twice nominated for a Pushcart Prize and has received numerous other honors. He is editor of several recent anthologies, including A Quilt of Holidays. His has been published widely in magazines, journals, and anthologies, including Oxford American, New Orleans Review, Louisiana Literature, Big Muddy, Cream City Review, Wisconsin Review, Post Road, New Plains Review, Weber-Contemporary West, Mature Living, Woodstock Revisited, The Southern Poetry Anthology: Louisiana, and others.He is a frequent presenter and an invited speaker at the Louisiana Book Festival and other literary events.