Rosanna Xia in conversation with Daniela Blei, discussing California Against the Sea at the Ruby in San Francisco.

Join the Ruby as they celebrate the launch of Rosanna Xia’s new book, California Against the Sea! Proof of vaccination is required. Masks are encouraged. This event is free to attend, but RSVP is required. This event will include a conversation, short reading, and Q&A. Books will be available for purchase at the event from our friends at Dog Eared Books!

*This event will take place at The Ruby in San Francisco’s Mission District. The Ruby is a collective of women and nonbinary people, and for the safety of its members their address is not public. Attendees will be sent the address in reminder email two days before the event and on event date. Please do not share this address with anyone who is not attending the event. Seating will be first come, first serve.

Rosanna Xia is an environmental reporter for the Los Angeles Times, where she specializes in stories about the coast and ocean. Her work spans feature writing to investigative reporting and engages themes of climate and social justice. Xia’s reporting has uncovered the dumping of toxic DDT waste off the Los Angeles coast; set the record straight on the seizure of Bruce’s Beach from its Black proprietors (prompting an unprecedented reparative land return in 2022); explored the impacts of coastal gentrification; and articulated the dangers posed to shorelines by pollution and heating oceans. She was a Pulitzer Prize finalist in 2020 for explanatory reporting on sea level rise, which inspired the work that culminated in California Against the Sea. Her writing has been anthologized in the Best American Science and Nature Writing series.

Daniela Blei is a historian and book editor who works with faculty, independent scholars, and universities around the world on a variety of projects. Writing about places where the past and present meet, from the natural world to the built environment, her work has appeared in The Atlantic, Smithsonian Magazine, the Los Angeles Review of Books, and elsewhere. She is currently writing a book about the forgotten past and disappearing future of six of the world’s most famous beaches. She was an Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow in the Humanities at the University of California, Berkeley and taught history and humanities at Reed College before returning to the Bay Area, an on-and-off home for more than two decades.