By Rick Rickman and Donna Wares. “America has always worshiped youth. This attitude permeates our films and sports and culture, as if our fondest wish is never to grow up—which is, of course, a futile desire, destined for disappointment. But as America grays, some men and women are discovering a better alternative: growing older, but continuing to grow. To live life to its fullest. To play … For the past two decades [photographer] Rick Rickman has traveled the country chronicling the lives of aging adventurers and amateur athletes who defy the conventional wisdom about what it means to grow old in our society.” Read more and see photographs in this excerpt.

By Page Stegner. Wallace Stegner spent summers at a “think house” in Vermont and returned each fall to Northern California and his duties as director of the Stanford Creative Writing Program. “As much as anything it is that writing program that identifies him with the state and its contribution to literary culture,” Page Stegner, the author’s son, writes in the introduction. Read it here.

By Susan Straight. “For twenty-five years I have written about this region and tried to infuse my work with love and desire and the fierceness we retain in these small places where people loved their own with the vehemence, the stubborn and suspicious and inventive qualities required to survive…” novelist Susan Straight writes in the introduction.

by Deanne Stillman. “The more time I spent wandering the trails of Joshua Tree National Park, the clearer it became that the desert — not Long Island, Wall Street, the White House, Madison Avenue, the Home Shopping Channel, or other regions born of mirage — explains the national character…”

By Mary Mackey. In her 2006 collection of poetry, Mary Mackey journeys from her childhood Indianapolis to a Brazilian favela to the Golden State she shares with the world. Read here poem “The Californian” here.

By Edward Humes. “Schools for art, acting, photography, dance and design from coast to coast were sustained by veterans returning from war…” Edward Humes writes in Over Here. “The men and women who graduated from them after the war launched a twentieth century renaissance in the arts in America…”

By Mike Madison. California farmer and author Mike Madison writes about the evocative — almost magical — effect of lilac-time at the farmers’ market in “Listening to Lilacs.” Read it here.

By Lewis Buzbee. Lewis Buzbee, a former bookseller and sales representative, celebrates the unique experience of the bookstore — the smell and touch of books, the joy of getting lost in the deep canyons of shelves, and the silent community of readers. Read an excerpt here.

By Kevin Roderick. The life story of the famed drag and all that grew up around it. Read an excerpt here.

By April Sinclair. In this anthology twenty-nine writers address the challenges and rewards of growing older as a single woman: sex, loneliness, motherhood, learning to live alone (and happily), financial struggles, blossoming careers, menopause, and more. April Sinclair shares her essay “Straight Outta Marin.” Read the excerpt here.

By William E. Justice. “There are certain writers that find us in youth, or in a moment of youth when we’re bent-backed and hoary, who cause a strange and irreversible reaction… William Saroyan is such a writer,” William E. Justice writes in Essential Saroyan, a collection of stories by the Pulitzer Prize-winner Fresno author and playwright. Read an excerpt from the introduction here.

By J.D. Lasica. An exploration of a new age of prohibition. In this excerpt from chapter one, he shares the story of three Mississippi teens and their labor of love: a movie Steven Spielberg praised and you’ll probably never see.

By devorah major. When she served as San Francisco’s poet laureate in 2002, major asked people to send her poems about life in the city. She heard from children, seniors, the homeless, working folks and celebrated authors, too… and shares their stories in this anthology. Read an excerpt from the introduction here.

by Edward Humes. Pulitzer Prize-winning author Edward Humes chronicles life inside California’s top public high school, where the test scores are stratospheric, sleep is optional, and the kids chug espresso just to keep up.

By Kathi Kamen Goldmark. Backup singer Sarah Jean Pixlie got her own song on the radio and that got her nominated for a coveted Patsy award. And that got her fired by country star Cindy-Lu Bender. What to do? Head home to California and the warm, weird embrace that awaited her at the Dewdrop Inn. [...]

By Hector Tobar. In his Ode to Caltrans, Hector Tobar writes about Southern Californian’s specal relationship to the freeways in this essay from the critically acclaimed anthology.

By Pico Iyer. Lauded travel writer Pico Iyer introduces My California: Journeys by Great Writers. This critically acclaimed anthology of travel and adventure stories donated by 27 of California’s most talented writers benefits the beleaguered California Arts Council.