Palmetto Publishing Releases Vietnam Veteran Anthony Hall Seed's Award-Winning War Fiction Collection

Somewhat Difficult to Put into Words, a newly published collection of short stories and short plays from a Purple Heart recipient, is now available from Palmetto Publishing.

CHARLESTON, S.C., Sept. 24, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Palmetto Publishing has released Somewhat Difficult to Put into Words, a collection of short stories and short plays by Vietnam War veteran and Purple Heart recipient Anthony Hall Seed. The book, which won the Hackney Literary Awards and was a finalist for the Eugene O'Neill National Playwright Conference, draws on Seed's firsthand experience as a reconnaissance soldier with the First Air Cavalry Division during the Tet Offensive.

The collection spans decades and theaters of conflict, from the beaches of the Pacific in World War II to the jungles north of Hue during the Vietnam War. Through multiple points of view, Seed places readers alongside young soldiers who were thrust into combat before they could grasp what it would cost them. 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 story and play offers a distinct voice, yet all share the weight of lives marked permanently by what they witnessed and what they were forced to do.

At the center of every narrative is the same unresolvable tension: how does a person carry the dead forward into an ordinary life? Seed's 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 the fire and confusion of battle. The cost of survival is measured not in medals but in the invisible wounds that follow these men home, wounds that prove far more difficult to treat than shrapnel or burns.

Anthony Hall Seed stated, "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."

The collection occupies a vital space in contemporary war literature alongside works by Tim O'Brien, Karl Marlantes, and Denis Johnson. Its blend of prose fiction and dramatic writing sets it apart formally, while its unflinching focus on moral injury and the long psychological aftermath of combat gives it urgency at a time when a new generation is learning about the Vietnam War primarily through history books rather than firsthand accounts. Seed's credentials as both a decorated combat veteran and an award-winning journalist lend the work an authority that resonates on every page.

Somewhat Difficult to Put into Words is available for purchase online at Amazon.com and BarnesandNoble.com.

About the Author: Anthony Hall Seed is a Vietnam War veteran, Purple Heart recipient, and award-winning journalist. A finalist for the 2011 Eugene O'Neill National Playwright Conference, Seed brings hard-earned credibility to every page he writes. His service as a reconnaissance soldier with the First Air Cavalry Division during the Tet Offensive gives his work an authority that cannot be manufactured or imitated.

Seed's debut collection, Somewhat Difficult to Put into Words, gathers short stories and short plays that offer searing glimpses into the experiences of young men thrust unprepared into the fire, confusion, and drama of war. His writing is rooted in a deeply personal mission: to capture what it means to be too young for combat, too naive to understand the cost, and too haunted to ever fully leave it behind. Each piece in the collection carries the weight of memory, tracing the long journey from the battlefield to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, where names and dates etched in black granite mirror those etched in the hearts, minds, and souls of the men who survived. Seed's voice is dramatic, compelling, and unflinching, shaped by the conviction that the truest stories about war take no prisoners.

About the Book:

Title: Somewhat difficult to put into words
Author: Anthony Hall Seed

Publisher: Palmetto Publishing
Publication date: 9/9/26
ISBN-13: 9798318838859, 9798318838842, 9798318838866
Available for interviews: Author, Anthony Hall Seed

SOURCE Palmetto Publishing