Susan D. Anderson is History Curator at the California African American Museum in Los Angeles, and a member of the editorial board of the California History journal. For decades, she has brought her scholarly interest in California’s hidden African American history to her writing, lectures and public history projects, including exhibitions, podcasts, and programming. Her forthcoming book in 2027 will be the first work in a 2-volume history of Black people in California.

John Freeman is an editor at Knopf, former editor of Granta, and host of Alta Journal‘s California Book Club. He is the author, most recently, of California Rewritten: A Journey Through the Golden State’s New Literature (published October 14, 2025). He is the author and editor of several books, including three anthologies and three poetry collections. His work has been translated into more than twenty languages and has appeared in The New Yorker, The Paris Review, and the New York Times.

Dorothy Lazard served as a librarian for nearly forty years, including two decades with the Oakland Public Library (OPL), where she was head librarian of Oakland’s History Center. Beloved by her Bay Area community, she has been an indispensable resource for journalists, library patrons, and all the ever-curious that have crossed the threshold of OPL. She is the author of the memoir What You Don’t Know Will Make a Whole New World and her forthcoming book in 2026 will explore her years of service behind the desk at Oakland Main Library. Photo by Gene Dominique.

Eugene Rodriguez is founder and executive director of Los Cenzontles Cultural Arts Academy, a nonprofit based in San Pablo, California oriented around celebrating traditional Mexican folk arts, music, and performance. His work has been featured in the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, and the San Francisco Chronicle. His memoir Bird of Four Hundred Voices: A Mexican American Memoir of Music and Belonging was an NPR Best Book of 2024. He is the recipient of several awards and fellowships, including from the California Arts Council and United States Artists.

Greg Sarris is an award-winning author, producer, and playwright. He first rose to prominence as a major Native writer in the ’90s with his novels Watermelon Nights and Grand Avenue, the latter of which he adapted for an HBO miniseries with Robert Redford. His recent works—Becoming Story, How a Mountain Was Made, and The Forgetters—have been lauded by Kirkus, Publishers Weekly, Literary Hub, the Washington Post, and Electric Literature, among others. His novel The Last Human Bear will debut from Heyday June 2026. In addition to his immense literary output, Sarris has served as the tribal chairman for the Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria for 17 consecutive elected terms. Photograph by Beowulf Sheehan.