RED DIRT RHYTERS
TIM'M WEST
TREASURE
HANIFAH WALIDAH
GABRILLA BALLARD
RED DIRT BOOKS


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 RED DIRT REVIVAL


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tim.m@reddirt.biz

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There has to be some happy medium between the prospect of striking a deal with a big publishing company and the tireless effort required of those who’ve opted to self-publish. While some authors may have the luxury of a full-time job allowing for generous savings, many of us require our day jobs just to maintain a comfortable lifestyle. Red Dirt Publishing is the outgrowth of one writer’s ambition to create a repository for cutting-edge, quality writing by pulling together many of the resources available to him. Tim’m T. West, author of “Red Dirt Revival” and visionary for Red Dirt Publishing, imagined a kind of text rich with poetic sensibility, risky in its break from traditional form and language, and predicated on the notion that our stories are the way black folk relay our philosophy and sense of truth.

An undergraduate and graduate student of Philosophy and Literature, Tim’m struggled to find a space to reconcile all the theories he encountered in school with the voices and rhythms of the folk back home. Red Dirt Publishing takes off from this notion of the apostrophe he adopted as part of his “taken” name. In his book “Red Dirt Revival” he references bell hooks in “Letter to Cixous”when he says: “talking back, fighting back, names aren’t supposed to have apostrophes!”. This “hooksean” notion of talking back and telling the truth to save oneself and one’s community is the foundation for Tim’m’s first book—a text mediating the spaces between academia and “Southern fried front porches.” The apostrophe itself symbolizes the bold interruption in language. It is the poor sistah’s colloquial insistence that “don’t” and “do not” mean almost exactly the same thing, and the former takes less effort to say. Red Dirt Publishing wants to celebrate these ruptures and breaks in the way people speak about their experience. Our philosophies are the stories we tell, the poetry we puzzle together, the whispers that get passed down through the generations waiting for a loud-mouth dis/closeur in order to be set free. We should not have to be apologetic for being “deep” and poetic or for celebrating the vast vernaculars of the English language created by peoples of African descent. Red Dirt Publishing is drawn to people who understand these rich and meaningful sensibilities in language. A budding repository for the multidisciplinary artist, authors involved with Red Dirt Publishing are not incidentally musicians, theater folk, emcees, vocalists, dancers, visual artists, and educators.

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TIM'M T. WEST
Author of Red Dirt Revival and the forthcoming

“Flirting”

 When I decided to self-publish Red Dirt Revival it was a bold step in the direction of creating validation for myself as a writer. As a widely published writer for various magazines, academic journals, and anthologies, I was still a bit intimidated with the publishing process; and felt I had something very different to offer the world as a writer. This “something” I feel does not comfortably fit the parameters of existing genres or styles. If you’re reading this page, you probably already know about Red Dirt Revival. The response has been quite amazing—including a 20 city book tour in its first year and continued interested in the work from vendors nationally. But I’ve also been clear that this work is not just about me. Along the way I’ve met and have been introduced to various writers whose stories will offer something fresh and inventive to our literary gumbo. The decision to dip into publishing was more about nurturing a community of “rhyters” who are about concretizing and claiming a period we know will be remembered as a Renaissance. The process is cooperative, the writing bold and poetic, and the products honor the spirit and legacy of African-American literature.

Scheduled for release in June 2007 is Tim'm's more light-hearted follow-up to Red Dirt Revival: "Flirting". An autobiographical follow-up expressed mostly through poetry (though also prose and essay), Tim'm flirts with memory, girls, boys, danger, politics, and romance". Known for his brave autobiographical testimonials, West's writes in the tradition of poets like Audre Lorde, Essex Hemphill, and Pablo Neruda who are known for writings that seize language as a tool reflecting social change-- bridging the political and erotic landscapes, so much that the distinction becomes beautifully blurred. While rooted in his personal experience as black, gay-identified poet, emcee, activist, scholar, and educator, "Flirting" is an invitation to (re)connect others to that optimistic, joyful space where, even between rocks and hard places, hope springs eternal. An emcee and Spoken Word artist he is regarded as a poet who comfortably navigates language that respects the conventions of his training as a writer, while honoring rhythm and lexicon of a Hip Hop generation. Beyond the word play, there is profound meaning in something as light-hearted as "Flirting". West proposes an existential modality for being in the world, especially for those burdened by an intersectionality of -isms: (re)turn to joy!




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TREASURE WILLIAMS
Author of the chapbook “skinheads need a good moisturizer” and the forthcoming Red Dirt Publishing debut “Feeding the Dead”

 Treasure Williams is a multidisciplinary artist and educator from Mississippi. She is a Cave Canem fellow who met Tim’m T. West at a reading he did in Memphis during his summer tour 2003. They interestingly had the Bay area, the South, and writing as common interests. This began a wonderful alliance. Treasure received a B.A. in English from Jackson State University and an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Memphis with a specialization in poetry. She has written and produced two CD’s of poetry “Drop the Axxe” (Bust It Records, 1991) and “Treasure”(Airtight Productions, 1998). She has published poetry and fiction in venues as varied as the recent anthology “Bum Rush the Page,” and the scholarly journal “Obsidian III”. Says Treasure about background and forthcoming collection:

“I’m a nappyheaded black girl from the former slave state of Mississippi. I come from oral tradition that includes the dozens, Easter speeches, the Blues and Hip Hop. My work is character driven; inhabited by spirits who seek a voice because theirs is a story that people think they already know. I chose the title “Feeding the Dead”because I believe that the dead are hungry for remembrance, libation, for a fitting legacy of achievement. I chose this title so that I could give due praise to my ancestors. I believe that ol’scratch, Legba, the devil, whatever you want to call it, loves a lie. And fear. So my truth isn’t owned by anyone. It is The Creator’s truth. It is the truth we all share.”

click here for more about Treasure



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HANIFAH WALIDAH
Playwright of “Black Folks Guide to Black Folks” and author of the forthcoming “Book of Invincible”

Originally from NYC, is a social performance artist/activist now living in Oakland California. First introduced as Sha-Key with her 1994 Hip Hop LP "A Headnadda's Journey to Adidi-Skizm"; she has since received the NYFA Fellow in Poetry in 1999 and in that same year co-wrote and performed in the multi-cast stage play and musical "Bloom" (Ain't I a flower); which had successful runs at WOW and the Nuyorican Poets Café. The debut of Hanifah Walidah's one-woman multi-character stage play "Black Folks Guide to Black Folks" which debuted at the Oakland Box Theater in October 2002 and later at the Alice Arts Theater in April 2003, received outstanding reviews from both the SF Chronicle ("comic tour de force") and the Bay Guardian ("A gap tooth Zora Neale Hurston). It can now be found on DVD.

Her Red Dirt release will be a double volume book featuring both her play Black Folks Guide to Black Folks and The Book of Invincible which continues where the play left off, from the perspective of one of its more endearing characters, Ms. Invincible.




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GABRILLA BALLARD
Author of the forthcoming “Mama’s Block, Mama’s Blood”

GaBrilla Tara Ballard is daughter of a nurse/super woman/ singer and law enforcer. She is grand-daughter of a Music Composer and a Preacher. New Orleans Native. Writer. Healer Songwriter. Singer. Teacher. Poet. Musician. Painter. When home, a second liner :-) and at times hermit. Political Thinker and Freedom fighter who uses all mediums to bring about enlightenment, truth and to expose those things that she finds other artists and authors skating around or speaking on lightly. Says Gabrilla about Red Dirt Publishing:

“I feel my work should be of interest to RDP because my voice is one of many powerful literary/artistic voices born and bred in New Orleans that brings to writing a sense of New Orleans culture that is often appropriated and objectified by those who are not only disconnected from the culture, but have no real understanding of its origins. I write for black people and about black people and our many dimensions. I celebrate that which is unique to our experience, i.e. spirit: church/religion/ Gawd, music, language (yah, we got our own thing…), rhythm, colors, all those things that make us who we are: Tight. I am 25 years old, so I am coming from a perspective that isn’t often heard in the black literary world. But is so needed. The Title of my Novel is "Mama’s Block, Mama’s Blood". I wish to illuminate the truths about a family of women in New Orleans who are all powerful, yet fail to recognize it and use it to transform their worlds. "Mama’s Block, Mama’s Blood, is a story about a young woman, Lanelle, who travels back home to discover her own power and change the entire fate of a family too proud to walk away from something long gone and too afraid to embrace something that is redemptive.”



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