Since 2002, CaliforniaAuthors.com has offered news and notes from a ringside seat on the nation’s largest book market. Along the way, we’ve built some nice resources: a growing and varied library of book excerpts and original essays by California writers; a directory where readers can find California authors and authors can tell the world about their work; and listings pointing readers to independent bookstores, west coast publishers, media, literary events, organizations and more. We teamed with Angel City Press to co-publish the remarkable My California anthology, which benefits the California Arts Council and has raised nearly $100,000 for school writing programs.

Our continuing goal: be useful. Our motivation: CaliforniaAuthors.com is a labor of love!

CaliforniaAuthors.com reaches new readers every day. They stop by to take in the California bookscape, its stories and its best storytellers. Our regular readership includes publishers, literary agents, authors, journalists, professors, teachers, librarians, students, booksellers, and book lovers in general.

Here’s what some of our readers have to say about us:

“Far from the established publishing houses of the Big Apple, a rich literary tradition thrives under California’s blue skies and near the crashing Pacific surf. The West Coast’s finest writers are featured on this literary hub, along with resources for readers interested in Left Coast writing. Yes, people really do read in LA…” – Yahoo names CaliforniaAuthors.com as Pick of the Day.

“You have the most amazing web site. I truly love everything I read. What a resource for me as a bookseller. I just wish Texas had a web site like yours and I’d be in the pink!” — Kathy L. Patrick, founder of the Pulpwood Queens book club

“I find myself returning to your website again and again — it’s a really fabulous resource. I love how you are giving the literature of California the respect and attention it deserves.” — Gayle Brandeis, author

“Well-crafted site devoted to California authors, a site I’d be telling you about even if it hadn’t published one of my excerpts. Trust me, you’ll dig it.” — Bob Baker, Newsthinking.com

“California Authors is a smart little website on a mission to steal some limelight from the writers on that other coast.” — Derek Powazek

“The wonderfully rich website by Donna Wares and Kate Cohen” — Kevin Roderick, LAObserved

“People are reading you!” — Aimee Liu, author and former PEN USA West President

“Just recently came across a site for California writers called, appropriately enough, CaliforniaAuthors.com. Great stuff here…. I’ll be a regular visitor to this well-done site.” — J.D. Lasica’s New Media Musings

“Increasingly essential” – David Kipen in the San Francisco Chronicle

“Love your site.” — David Boyne, writersmonthly.com

“Another TEV favorite” – Mark Sarvas, The Elegant Variation

“I’m a big fan of the site and I also wanted to thank you for providing a much needed forum in our very literary city.” — C. Max Magee, The Millions

“I check this site every day because it has a mix of gossip – who is getting published, which bookstores are closing (or opening), who is reading where – as well as excerpts from books about California. There are author interviews and links to West Coast publishers and independent bookstores. It has a compendium of vital books about the history and culture of California.” — Frances Dinkelspiel, Ghost Word

We are CaliforniaAuthors.com

Donna Wares, editor/writer. After fifteen years in newspapers, Donna left daily journalism and started Paper Tigers, a book editing and web publishing company. She is an editor who specializes in nonfiction books (among them the best-selling My California anthology) and a writer who turned her love of travel into paying work (her current book is Great Escapes: Southern California). She has collaborated with a diverse assortment of authors, among them scientists, artists, novelists, poets, lawyers, journalists, historians, literature profs, and detectives. Previously, Donna was the National Weekend Editor at the Los Angeles Times and also worked at the Orange County Register and Miami Herald. She teaches in the Journalism Department at California State University Long Beach. Her travel blog is SoCalSoCool.net.

Kate Cohen, designer/web producer/writer. An artist, designer and writer, Kate has been creating interactive products and publications for 19 years. After writing and designing for the New Orleans Times-Picayune and The Orange County Register, Kate was partner and creative director of Omnivore — a multimedia design and consulting studio — where she managed and designed large-scale projects for clients such as Time Warner Interactive Group, Virgin Sound and Vision and The Los Angeles Times. In 2000, she opened Kate Cohen Fine and Applied Arts, a boutique design firm specializing in the complete production of beautifully crafted smaller-scale web sites, as well as the sale of her oil paintings and sculpture. www.katecohen.com

Val Cohen, web engineer. Val has been designing and implementing publishing systems since the mid-1980s. He worked at the New Orleans Times-Picayune and The Orange County Register, and was a multimedia developer and technical director of a number of Internet properties including Hilton.com. He’s currently a software developer in corporate IT.

Contact us

We love to hear from you! Let us know what is happening in your corner of the bookscape. But please forgive us — we receive so many notes and inquiries each day that we cannot give each one a personal answer. We read each one and we thank you for keeping in touch!

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