Red Dirt Talking

Set in the outback of Western Australia, this novel centers around the disappearance of Kuj, an eight-year-old girl, during a bitter custody battle. Annie, an anthropology graduate newly arrived from the city, is increasingly distracted from her work by the mysterious event. As Annie searches for the truth beneath the township's wild speculations, she find herself increasingly drawn towards Mick Hooper, a muscly, laid-back Australian man with secrets of his own.

A group of young Irish migrants leave a man called Hopper for dead on an outback road in Australia. They barely know him; no-one will miss him in their world of hostels, wild nights on cheap wine and grinding work on isolated farms. In this powerful novel about the discovery of responsibility, three young people – Fiona, Murph and Hopper – flee the collapse of their country's economy. In the heat and endless spaces of Australia they try to escape their past, but impulsive cruelty, shame and guilt drag them down, and it is easy to make terrible choices.

A classic in contemporary Oklahoma literature, Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz’s Red Dirt unearths the joys and ordeals of growing up poor during the 1940s and 1950s. In this exquisite rendering of her childhood in rural Oklahoma, from the Dust Bowl days to the end of the Eisenhower era, the author bears witness to a family and community that still cling to the dream of America as a republic of landowners.

Welcome to Sutton Station: One of the world's largest working farms in the middle of Australia - where if the animals and heat don't kill you first, your heart just might. Charlie Sutton runs Sutton Station the only way he knows how; the way his father did before him. Determined to keep his head down and his heart in check, Charlie swears the red dirt that surrounds him - isolates him - runs through his veins. American agronomy student Travis Craig arrives at Sutton Station to see how farmers make a living from one of the harshest environments on earth. But it's not the barren, brutal and totally beautiful landscapes that capture him so completely. It's the man with the red dirt heart.

Talking Hawaii’s Story is the first major book in over a generation to present a rich sampling of the landmark work of Hawaii’s Center for Oral History. Twenty-nine extensive oral histories introduce readers to the sights and sounds of territorial Waikiki, to the feeling of community in Palama, in Kona, or on the island of Lanai, and even to the experience of a German national interned by the military government after Pearl Harbor. The result is a collection that preserves Hawaii’s social and cultural history through the narratives of the people who lived it—co-workers, neighbors, family members, and friends. An Introduction by Warren Nishimoto and Michi Kodama-Nishimoto provides historical context and information about the selection and collection methods. Photos of the interview subjects accompany each oral history. For further reading, an appendix also provides information about the Center for Oral History’s major projects.

I slowly raised my hand when the visiting pastor asked who wants change in their life. He looked at me and told me, "I have nothing for you, you need to write, just write. Your story needs to be heard." We were barely hitting top speed, flying down the hill, and the sound that blasted through the trees and above the pebbles scared us all. It was the blast of a horn from a log truck. This bellowing booming sound meant get out of the way! Our laughter turned into fear as we all turned back to see a large empty log truck barreling at us. Growing up in the heart of the deep East Texas woods with three channels on TV, we could not help but take our adventures outside. These stories will take you down the red dirt road we called home. We raced log trucks in a makeshift buggy, nearly burnt down Granny's house, danced in her shoes, created clubhouses out of anything not tied down, plus so many more. Looking back at these adventures, we laugh and wonder how we made it without broken bones or, worse, mishaps. We made it with prayer and a family's love for God and us. With each adventure you read, you will find a lesson learned I discovered along the way forty plus years later as I have grown into my faith. It's been there all along, all I needed was to slow down and be still.

Red Dirt is the story of one man's quest for personal knowledge. It is a journey to discover the influences of his homeland on his upbringing, values, and relationships. But it is much, much more. Red Dirt is also the chronicle of an expedition along California's Landscape of Imagination. It is the story of a trip down Highway 49, the fabled roadway that slices through the heart of the Gold Country the Mother Lode, home of the 49ers, the land of dreams. It is the true story of the past, present, and future of one of the most important regions in American Western history. Red Dirt is about who we are and to what we aspire. Red Dirt is about us.

“An ace of a novel, an ace of a writer.” —Tom Franklin, author of Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter Red Dirt is the story of Jaxie Skinner, an unlikely professional tennis player from a blue-collar family in the sticks of rural Georgia who takes up the game at the age of three when his father scrapes a court out of the red clay behind their farmhouse. He is a natural, rising to the top of junior tennis, and at eighteen has great success at the French Open. He falls as quickly as he rose, however, when troubles back home and injuries arise. He quits the game for years, but then mounts a comeback, struggling for almost a decade in the unglamorous, low-paying minor leagues of tennis, often living out of his van, before getting one last big shot. A fascinating study of tennis, its demands and tactics, as well as a look at the insular and often selfish character required to reach the pinnacle of the sport, Red Dirt is the Rocky of tennis novels. PRAISE FOR RED DIRT “Starnes spins a tale with the pace and power of a Rafael Nadal forehand.” —Jay Jennings, editor of Tennis and the Meaning of Life: A Literary Anthology of the Game “Alright, literate tennis fans, it’s time to put down the remote and set aside those stat sheets and take an alternately amusing and inspiring trip from the top of the pro tennis barrel to the bottom—and back again. Joe Samuel Starnes’s book radiates an aficionado’s understanding of not just how the game is played (on and off the court) but what it takes to triumph in the hyper-competitive pro game.” —Peter Bodo, Tennis magazine senior writer, ESPN columnist, and co-author of Pete Sampras’s autobiography, A Champion’s Mind “Red Dirt is solid pleasure. Starnes knows what it is to compete, to hope to be made whole by competition, to overcome not just your opponent but your own unquiet. This is a tennis novel, but any athlete—no, any reader—will learn a lot and enjoy the learning.” —John Casey, author of Spartina, winner of the National Book Award “Red Dirt isn’t just a terrific sports novel; it’s a terrific novel, period. Jaxie Skinner is a complex and compelling character, and Starnes gives him a clear, fresh, lively voice.” —Michael Griffith, author of Spikes