Places to Call Our Own

Movie stars and pro athletes thrive here like those imperious palm trees you see from the freeway. Fixed fireworks against a tangerine dusk, they are familiar, yes, but away and above us, always.

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So why are our writers treated like Hondas in the Oscars valet line? Maybe it’s the mistaken view that literature is a uniquely East Coast beast, like subways and hurricanes. If celebs are palms, our writers are canyon flowers growing in wildfire ash--tested, vivid and vital to the ground beneath our feet.

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We asked seven authors to unravel a local mystery, to expose an overlooked facet of Southern California that might comfort us in these times. Some of their responses are loving, others funny, but all, it should be noted, are squarely at ground level, far closer to us than those lovely, lonely palms.