John Freeman, author of just-released California Rewritten: A Journey Through the Golden State’s New Literature, has an ask for his East Coast friends. “Picture the entire length of the East Coast as one state,” he says. That might give them an idea of the multi-habitat, multicultural, multi-political jigsaw puzzle that is California.

This concept is reflected in the 51 essays that make up California Rewritten, covering work from living California writers from Deborah A. Miranda (Bad Indians) to Amy Tan (The Backyard Bird Chronicles). Multiple Bay Area authors are part of the mix, including Rebecca Solnit (A Paradise Built in Hell), Elaine Castillo (America Is Not the Heart), Karen Tei Yamashita (I Hotel), Tommy Orange (There There) and Maxine Hong Kingston (The Woman Warrior) along with

See Full Page