From the Los Angeles Times:

James D. Houston, a novelist, essayist and short-story writer firmly rooted in the West, whose works explored his native California, Hawaiian culture and, in collaboration with his wife, the World War II internment of Japanese Americans, died Thursday at his home in Santa Cruz. He was 75.

His death was due to complications of cancer, according to his daughter Gabrielle.

Houston was the author of nine novels, including “Snow Mountain Passage” (2001), inspired by a personal link to the ill-fated Donner Party of early California history, and “Bird of Another Heaven” (2007), about a 19th century woman of Hawaiian and California Indian ancestry.

Keep reading here.

Lisa Alvarez at the excellent Mark on the Wall blog has compiled a collection of links and remembrances. “Jim was one of the good guys,” she says.