Heyday Books Holiday Party Dec 11

I had the fun and pleasure to visit the Heyday Books office in Berkeley, CA yesterday for their annual holiday party. I mixed a bit of business - reviewing editing and permissions matters with my supervisor, Heyday Books acquistions editor Gayle Wattawa - with a lot of fun. It was great to see Malcolm, and meet other amazing literary people who are doing so much in their work to embody and record California legacy and heritage through their many projects with Heyday.

I was honored to meet people who are working on a Sierra Nevada-region literary anthology; Stan Yogi, who co-edited the well-received "Highway 99" anthology ten years ago; several photographers and designers; a Steinbeck scholar; and others who are as thrilled and enthused about their regions and parts of the state as I am about the desert.

Malcolm asked me how I maintain my vigor and vitality for what I do, with desert literature. That is really a good question, and it makes me pause. I think part of it is that I was taken to the desert from the grungy Inland Empire area of southern California (Rialto - smog - suburbia) high up to the "high" desert on the other side of the San Bernardino Mountains - at the age of 13, and made an immediate connection with the open spaces and desert energy. Part of it, a literal and visceral, physical response to the power of the landscape and vast opportunities for exploration and discovery, but another part of it an opening of space in which my own creative language could develop.

Most people use "culture" and the societies around them as the basis of their work; for me, the desert has become, in many ways cheekily, my own "cultural" identity - in part based on the inherent irony of the lack of people and society - at least in my formative years; people went to the desert to escape from the above - and that's the spirit by which my father relocated our family to what was essentially the middle of nowhere - except for the vast fields of ravens landing at sunset, the pinks and purples behind sharp Joshua tree needles, the mirror of light bouncing from boulders, the tumbleweeds and icy wind on many spring mornings. My ideas about desert as a cultural identity are a bit bizarre but also not too far off base, I realize, as I learn more and more about the longtime residents of the region, the many tribes of indigenous people, who preceded me there for centuries and knew and used the desert wisely.

I guess I've dug deep to find my cultural connections - and it's based on a sense of remoteness from people and society that was sprung upon me at an early age. But my present day vitality and vigor come from this: sharing my imaginative interactions with the desert, the healing and release, the catharsis and expression, that I've nurtured and enjoyed for years , with other people, through poetry, community-building, and sharing and showing the desert to people whenever, however I can. This is where my vigor and vitality come from.

The ironic but deeply satisfying ability I've gained, through the years of so much time I've spent mostly alone in the desert, steeping in its creosote tea in silent, imposing windswept kettles of land - to find something, a vision, an essence, a beauty, a renewal, a reward of things and places and memories bigger and more permanent than our minutary and fickle permuatations. In short: hope, inspiration, and relief springing from the drop dead and jump alive beauty and power of the barren desert land, and its ability to forth-bring people from their barest secrets and selves. And it would be nothing, no reason to go there again, without sharing it with people.