California Prose Directory: New Writing from The Golden State

A Vacaville rodeo. Hollywood quid pro quo. A verbal altercation at a Buddhist retreat. Nearly starving to death in the farmlands of Clovis. The Santa Anas blowing fire through the SoCal foothills. The lights of oil rigs glowing brightly in the Santa Barbara Channel. Farm worker strikes and Prop 21. Smelting the Lost Coast. Hiking the Mojave. Hells Angels, divorce law and Chez Panisse. The mountains and the beaches. The cities and the desert. In these twenty short stories and sixteen essays, established and emerging writers alike speak to California's myriad joys and juxtapositions.