David Kipen – Dear California: The Golden State in Diaries and Letters

In Person Author Event
* Saturday, October 7, 11:0 0am

Running from January 1 through December 31, leaping across decades and centuries, Dear California reflects on the state’s shifting landscapes and the notion of place.

Entries talk across the centuries, from indigenous stories told before the Spanish arrived on the Pacific coast through to present-day tweets, blogs, and other ephemera. The collected voices show how far we’ve wandered–and how far we still have to go in chasing the elusive California dream.

This is a book for readers who love California–and for anyone who simply treasures flavorful writing. Weaving together the personal, the insightful, the impressionistic, the lewd, and the hysterically funny, Dear California presents collected writings essential to understanding the diversity, antagonisms, and abiding promise of the Golden State.

California native David Kipen has worked as the San Francisco Chronicle‘s book editor/critic, Director of Literature at the NEA, and, lately, L.A. Times critic at large and founder-director of the Libros Schmibros Lending Library.

Previous books include Dear Los Angeles and four reissued WPA Guides. His California-set historical paranoid conspiracy thriller, The Anniversarist, is forthcoming. Really.