Ralph Dunne

Ralph Dunne doesn’t sugarcoat life—he writes it the way he’s lived it. Born and raised in southeast Louisiana, he spent decades in law enforcement, standing face-to-face with both the worst and the best in people. Those years, combined with personal heartbreak and survival, shaped a voice that’s raw, direct, and unafraid to go where most people won’t. A widower after more than thirty years of marriage, Ralph knows grief not as an abstract concept, but as a daily companion—and he knows the long, messy climb back toward hope. His work reflects that hard-earned truth: poetry that doesn’t blink at love or loss, reflections that cut straight through the noise of modern relationships, and children’s stories that remind us that memory and legacy can be as gentle as they are powerful. Off the page, Ralph is just as real. You’ll find him out on the water chasing fish along the Louisiana coast, behind a grill cooking for friends and family, or swapping stories over coffee. He’s loyal to a fault, honest to a fault, and—sometimes to his own frustration—vulnerable to a fault. The same qualities that have gotten him bruised in life are the ones that make his writing stick with you. At its heart, his work isn’t just about survival—it’s about what you build once you’ve been through the fire. Because life will take things from you. Ralph’s proof that you can still make something worth keeping with what’s left.

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