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Well, the dog days of summer are here. And so are the dogs of war. Just in time for the 4th of July, fireworks of more than one kind are filling the skies here and abroad. War makes the whole world feel smaller and hotter and meaner. Summer in the South and Southwest is an odd dichotomy of suffering increasingly extreme heat and reveling in outdoor fun and natural beauty—cookouts, festivals, parties, great times that you sense will be treasured memories even as you are living them. A precarious, calculated balance between misery and sweetness. And once again marveling that our ancestors actually chose to live here way before air conditioning and pest control and allergy medicine.
In this issue, we are once again blessed with a great photo essay by Carl Deal. This time, he trains his lenses on the nature of fences and gates.
For poetry this time around, we are pleased to bring you “Of Two Minds” by Peter Mladinic and “Wild West Showdown of a Black Woman” by Traci Neal.
Diana Finlay Hendricks digs deep in a review of James McMurtry’s new album, and Teddy Jones reviews Jill Coupe’s new novel.
Teddy also recently introduced us to the fine folks at Stoney Creek Publishing in Wimberley, Texas. (Watch for Teddy’s new book there—and here—in September!) So we are proud to feature an excerpt from one of their new books, Dangerous Latitudes, by Jack Woodville London. “Set in the violent Republic of Texas of the early 1840s, Dangerous Latitudes is the story of an unlikely spy, two bumbling horse thieves, and a bewildering Black woman, all trapped between Sam Houston and a Mexican army that freely invades across the Rio Grande.”
Rounding out the fiction section are Travis Cohen’s “Daily Bread,” an evocative telling of an incident in a bakery. Neil Crabtree’s “Life During Wartime” is a very timely study of two neighbors politically at odds but personally horrified by what they witness on their street. A couple on the way to a bullfight across the border deal with a spiraling set of troubles in Natalia Martinez’s “Exit Sign.” And “The 4th of July” is a somewhat symbolic take on an increasingly tense family party.
As always, the biggest challenge we face every issue is pulling enough content together in time. So we are open for submissions. We have also partnered with Stack’s submission service, which is free for authors. Our submissions guidelines are posted on this page and in more detail on the website. We also welcome reviews and recommendations for Southern and Southwestern books, music, arts, and food.
Real South/West is a reader-supported publication. We’ve got a great new web developer helping us spiff up the site (as y’all might’ve noticed). He’s also working out a metered paywall for premium content. The reviews and recommendations will always be free, as well as some back issues. In the meantime, we’re putting up the ol’ PayPal tip bucket to help defray expenses.
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