A Bevy of Beautiful Books by Santa Barbara Authors
Powerful Pages Are Plotted and Produced During This Pandemic Year
By Matt Kettman and Nick Welsh | December 17, 2020
Santa Barbara is frequently a fertile ground for authors of all sorts, from the fictional settings explored by Ross Macdonald and Sue Grafton to the real-life impacts on the musings of Pico Iyer and T.C. Boyle. But rarely do so many high-quality, diverse books by hometown authors emerge all at once, which is what this issue seeks to celebrate.
None of the following eight books were completely plotted and produced within our ongoing pandemic year, but they all came to fruition during this period. They’re hitting shelves just in time to put an exclamation mark on your Christmas shopping list, but these aren’t seasonal flashes in the pan — many will be required reading for decades to come, while others are already attracting attention far beyond their regional ties.
Sheila Lodge Tells Santa Barbara’s All
Chuck Graham’s ‘Carrizo Plain: Where the Mountains Meet the Grasslands’
Island Visions, by Jacob Siegel Brielle and Isaac Siegel-Boettner
Arthur George’s ‘The Mythology of Wine’
Kim Sutherland’s ‘Rural, Issue 2: New Cuyama’
Jane Slama’s ‘In This Country: A Chronicle of the Cuyama Valley’
