Dixon "Dickie" Hearne has been twice nominated for the Pushcart Prize and a PEN/Hemingway award. He lives and teaches in southern California, though his writing draws greatly from the rich images in his daily life growing up along the graceful bayous and river traces in West Monroe, Louisiana. After many years of writing for research journals, his interests turned toward fiction—and the challenge of writing in a different voice. He is the author of a new short story collection, Plantatia: High-toned and Lowdown Stories of the South (Southeast Missouri University Press,2009), which won the 2010 Creative Spirit Award-Platinum for best general fiction book. Is the the editor of several recent books, including Thanksgiving to Christmas: A Patchwork of Stories, and co-editor of two anthologies of southern fiction. His stories, many of which have earned awards, can be found in Mature Living, Louisiana Literature, Cream City Review, Wisconsin Review, Roanoke Review and many other magazines, literary journals and anthologies. His work will be featured in The Southern Poetry Anthology: Volume 4, Louisiana. Other new work includes stories in Christmas Traditions and Woodstock Revisited—both from Adams Media, Potomac Review, and Hawai’i Pacific Review. Dixon is currently at work on a novel and a new short story collection. He is a frequent presenter and was an invited speaker at the 2009 Louisiana Book Festival and the Arkansas Book Festival.