Rock and a Hard Place Press is a lit-noir publisher, focused on stories of struggle, tales of the powerless and marginalized, characters on the fringes of society … and what they do next.
Rock and a Hard Place Press is thrilled to announce that we’ve re-released Dirtbags, the debut novel from Southern Noir superstar Eryk Pruitt! When three broken people find themselves slammed together by fate — Calvin, the killer; London, the cook; and Rhonda, the woman who loves them both — the body count starts to pile up. Set in a Virginia town where opportunity has long since vanished, Dirtbags is at times poignant, funny, sexy, and thrilling, while the three lead characters seek out what they don’t have: notoriety, love, family and a sense of belonging and purpose.
Eryk as earned a reputation as one of the great Southern Noir storytellers, and this is your chance to read his first crack at writing a novel. If you’ve followed his career through the years, you can trace a lot of the style and character work that has come to define his writing to this foundational book. If you don’t already have a copy, make sure to get yours’ today — and if you do have a copy of Dirtbags, get the RHP edition!
Want to know more about Eryk and his writing? Check out the RHP interview with Eryk, free on Patreon!
Last month, we kicked off a new offering from Rock and a Hard Place: an educational series of online courses to help develop writers’ skills! The inaugural online course through this series, “Writing Short Crime Fiction That Stands Out” from Steve Weddle (The County Line, Do Some Damage, Needle Mag) was an absolute banger, chock full of great lessons for beginners and established writers. The next online workshop in the series is being offered by Meagan Lucas (Here in the Dark, Songbirds and Stray Dogs), “Excavating a Diamond: Revising Your Short Story.”
Do you have a story that you’ve trunked, but you know there’s something there? Need help polishing and pulling out the best, or killing your darlings to get to the meat of your work? Then this online course is for you!
Meagan’s course begins July 9, and constitutes a live Zoom lecture, asynchronous assignments through Discord, a panel conversation with editors from Rock and a Hard Place and Reckon Review, and a final story critique from Meagan. Make sure you sign up today!
Throughout the year, we’ll be offering one-off workshops and longer online courses, complete with connection to the Rock and a Hard Place writers’ discord group. Keep an eye peeled for future offerings.
The cat’s out of the bag, and we’re excited to announce that we’ll be publishing Whatever Kills the Pain, the new short story collection by C.W. Blackwell this summer! To help announce the news, frequent RHP collaborator James D.F. Hannah interviewed C.W. on his “Five for Them, One for Me” interview series, over on the That Noise at 2 AM substack newsletter. Check it out, and preorders for one of the best collections of the year are currently live — you know what to do (preorder link is included in the interview as well as on the Whatever Kills the Pain publication page).
More big publication news coming soon. Keep checking this space for all the details.
Thanks for being a part of our RHP community, and look for more exciting news about planned projects for the year ahead, coming out shortly!