By Matt O'Brien, STAFF WRITER
Monday, March 28, 2005
SAN LORENZO — Librarians across the state, armed with a brand-new anthology of regional literature, are seeking to make April a month to get readers talking about what it means to be Californian.
A monthlong literary campaign launches locally this week with book discussions, author readings and other events at libraries in San Lorenzo, Castro Valley and throughout the Bay Area.
The story-sharing campaign is the latest sponsored by the California Council for the Humanities, a nonprofit state affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities.
"The one thing about fiction is we get glimpses into the lives of people we otherwise would never know," said Jim Quay, the council's executive
director and co-editor of the new anthology, "California Stories Uncovered: Stories for the 21st Century."
Quay said he hopes the compilation of mostly contemporary fiction, poetry, and essays will resonate with people and encourage them to share their own stories at library- and school-sponsored events.
"It encourages us to act together, I think," Quay said. "We've invited people to tell the stories of the deeper reality of California, beneath the headlines, statistics and stereotypes about the state."
The council's campaign follows its 2002 effort to get thousands of people joining together to read John Steinbeck's "The Grapes of Wrath." Quay saidthat worked because of the novel's "archetypal California story"
about the unanticipated realities of life beyond the California dream. This time, organizers sought to broaden the campaign by inviting a more ethnically diverse group of writers.
Quay, speaking by telephone from his office in San Francisco, recounted his own story of moving west from Pennsylvania in 1970, as well as his published interviews with dozens of people about what it means to be Californian.
"The word that kept coming through was hope," Quay said of his interviews. "Not everybody was rich that I interviewed, or was successful, but what had drawn them here and what kept them here was hope."
Berkeley poet Gary Soto is one of a number of living contributors to the anthology who are participating in
the April events. Soto will speak at the San Lorenzo Library on April 25. The book was published through a joint effort of the council and Heyday Books of Berkeley — free copies will be given out during library events.
Quay said the council offered grants of up to $5,000 for libraries to conduct book discussions.
An hourlong group book discussion will be held at 7 p.m. tonight in the San Lorenzo Library at 395 Paseo Grande. Other dicussions will follow at the same time on April 4 and 11. The events in San Lorenzo will culminate with a reading by Soto at 7 p.m. in the library on Monday, April 25.
Anthony Dos Santos, director of the library, said he is thrilled the Fresno-born Soto will
come to speak there.
Soto, whose contribution to the anthology is a poem, "The Elements of San Joaquin Valley," has written about growing up in a family of migrant Chicano farmers in the Central Valley.
Events at the Castro Valley Library, at 20055 Redwood Road, will feature a book discussion group at 7 p.m. on consecutive Tuesdays beginning tomorrow and continuing on April 5 and 12.
The events in Castro Valley will end with an April 19 reading by Bay area writer Ji-Li Jiang, author of the memoir "Red Scarf Girl." Also in April, novelist Gail Tsukiyama will read, and poet Alison Seevak will conduct a workshop at libraries in Dublin and Fremont.
More information about the full course of events is available at the Web site for
the California Council for the Humanities, www.calhum.org; and the Web site for the Alameda County Library system, www.aclibrary.org. Telephone numbers: San Lorenzo Library, (510) 670-6283; Castro Valley Library, (510) 795-2629.
Matt O'Brien can be reached at mattobrien@dailyreviewonline.com or (510) 293-2473.
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