Joins us to dive into the revelatory worlds of California’s most exciting writers, and discover how their books uncover our history and can help us imagine our shared future with John Freeman and Elaine Castillo.

John Freeman has hosted Alta‘s California Book Club since its founding in 2020. He is an executive editor at Alfred A. Knopf, and he edited Freeman’s (2015–2023), a literary annual of new writing. His books include How to Read a Novelistand Dictionary of the Undoing, as well as the anthologies Tales of Two Americas, Tales of Two Planets, The Penguin Book of the Modern American Short Story, and Sacramento Noir. He is also the author of three poetry collections, Maps, The Park, and Wind, Trees. His work is translated into more than twenty languages, and has appeared in The New Yorker, The Paris Review, and The New York Times. The former editor of Granta, he lives in New York.

Elaine Castillo, named one of “30 of the Planet’s Most Exciting Young People” by the Financial Times, was born and raised in the Bay Area. Her debut novel, America Is Not the Heart, was a finalist for numerous prizes including the Elle Big Book Award, the Center for Fiction Prize, and the Aspen Words Literary Prize and was named a best book of 2018 by NPR, Real Simple, Lit Hub, The Boston Globe, San Francisco Chronicle, The New York Post, Kirkus Reviews, and the New York Public Library.