Journal of Alta California

Featuring great stories, in-depth reporting, beautiful photography, smart thinking — Alta is the magazine and website that bring you everything California.

CONTRIBUTORS

JOURNAL OF ALTA CALIFORNIA

The Power to Discomfit

She Who Remembers • As a playwright, an activist, and Oakland’s inaugural poet laureate, Ayodele Nzinga boldly forges new narratives from the Black diaspora.

SIR FRANCIS DRAKE’S DATE WITH DESTINY • Time may be up for the English explorer, whose 1579 landing forms a pivotal moment in the historical narrative of California—and beyond.

Make It Rain • Cloud seeding sounds like science fiction, but it may become a useful tool to combat drought and lessen the risk of wildfires.

TUPAC IN THE AFTERLIFE • Twenty-five years after his murder, Shakur looms larger than ever as new fans connect his lyrics and legacy to Black Lives Matter, social inequity, and poverty.

Friendship

A RAT FILLED CASINO • Drowsy apes and exorbitant prices were just the beginning. NFTs are stealing the spotlight and upending the art world. Their next trick: unlocking the metaverse.

The Gift of Freedom in Guston’s Flatlands

Thirsty Burros • The herds of San Bernardino and Riverside Counties are caught up in the most western of troubles: the need for water.

CALIFORNIA IS HOG WILD • The state’s bursting at the seams with invasive pigs, to the dismay of biologists, conservationists, and farmers everywhere.

JOAN DIDION • A Celebration of the First Lady of California Letters

JOAN DIDION’S SINGULAR VOICE • The late writer knew that stories sustain us—until they don’t.

JOAN DIDION’S CALIFORNIA • Mapping some key spots that informed the author’s oeuvre.

TRANCAS 1975 • Childhood Sundays in Malibu—with a literary power couple as hosts— set a young writer on his path.

SEVEN MINUTES FOR JOAN • Didion’s nephew, Griffin Dunne, remembers the gift of directing the acclaimed documentary Joan Didion: The Center Will Not Hold.

THE PERVASIVE LONELINESS OF ‘PLAY IT AS IT LAYS’ • The 1972 film, much like the novel on which it is based, connects themes of longing and despair with our need to endure.

PLANTING A TREE IS NOT A WAY OF LIFE • Joan Didion’s profound and prescient commencement address to the UC Riverside class of 1975, which was found in the school archives in January.

Joan Didion • SHE EXPLORED THE UNDERCURRENTS OF LIFE WITH CLEAR-EYED HONESTY

Chasing Your Heroes

Nothing Is Funnier Than Unhappiness

The Long Con

Ars Poetica • How I found kinship with poets writing about the culture of my hometown, Fresno.

Fog Poem Number 71

Poems of Lived Experience Backlit by Intimacy • Ada Limón’s new collection, The Hurting Kind, brims with sensory richness and shows her to be a lover of many things: animals, people, and love itself.

‘THE WAYS OF FICTION ARE DEVIOUS INDEED’ • Finding current relevancy—and outrage—in the accusations of plagiarism that have long haunted a classic of the West: Wallace Stegner’s Angle of Repose.

The Side Hustles of Alta Contributors

Far More Than a Building • Frank Gehry is designing the Colburn School’s new concert hall. When finished, it will provide a much-needed performance space for students and for a burgeoning arts corridor in Downtown Los Angeles.

Taro

Trekking Toward an Equitable Outdoors

Altatude