A new collection of short stories and short plays by United States Vietnam War veteran Anthony Hall Seed is now available from Palmetto Publishing, based in Charleston, South Carolina. The debut collection, Somewhat Difficult to Put into Words, draws on Seed’s service as a reconnaissance soldier with the First Air Cavalry Division during the Tet Offensive.
The collection won the Hackney Literary Awards. Seed was a finalist for the 2011 Eugene O’Neill National Playwright Conference.
Scope and themes#
The stories and plays span decades and theaters of conflict, from Pacific beaches during World War II to jungles north of Hue during the Vietnam War. Through multiple points of view, Seed places readers alongside young soldiers who entered combat before they could grasp its cost.
Scenes unfold in field hospitals in Japan, in late-night screenings of captured execution films, and along the black granite of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C. Each piece offers a distinct voice, but all share the weight of lives marked permanently by what the characters witnessed and were forced to do.
At the center of each narrative is a recurring tension: how a person carries the dead forward into an ordinary life. Characters struggle with memories that resurface without warning, with guilt that has no clean edges, and with the knowledge that something essential was lost in battle. The cost of survival is measured not in medals but in invisible wounds that follow these men home.
“I wrote this book for the young men who might one day be asked to go to war. I wanted them to understand what that means before they find themselves carrying bodies across their shoulders and spending every year after trying to put the experience into words.”
Publication details#
- Title: Somewhat Difficult to Put into Words
- Author: Anthony Hall Seed
- Publisher: Palmetto Publishing
- Publication date: September 9, 2026
- ISBN-13: 9798318838859, 9798318838842, 9798318838866
- Availability: Amazon.com and BarnesandNoble.com
- Interviews: Anthony Hall Seed
Seed is a Vietnam War veteran, Purple Heart recipient, and award-winning journalist. The collection combines prose fiction and dramatic writing, a format that differs from works by Tim O’Brien, Karl Marlantes, and Denis Johnson. Its focus on moral injury and the long psychological aftermath of combat comes as a new generation learns about the Vietnam War primarily through history books rather than firsthand accounts.
