The Book Reigns in Northern California

Here's the truth: New York is no more “book country” than Sausalito is.

What I mean is Manhattan and its fellow boroughs are in no way the end-all be-all for the creation, nurturing and dissemination of published material in this gigantic country of ours.

Now, there is no question New York can be a wonderful playground for a writer or an editor or a publisher (especially if you have an expense account). But the attributes that make New York an oasis for the literati—a strong writers' community, a hungry readership, access to the faculty of world-class universities and colleges and close proximity to the students of prestigious MFA programs—are not exclusive to that city, or even the East Coast.

What New York is, in actuality, is the home office of American publishing. It's the gleaming skyscraper where all the bosses hold meetings and the bean-counters dictate budgets to middle managers. New York is where folks from the regional branches, if you will, fly in to every quarter to make their presentations, take in a show and enjoy a nice meal, then hop on a flight back to where the work gets done that justifies the home office's existence.

Among those regional branches, one reigns supreme: Northern California—by which I and mostly everybody else really mean the Bay Area. (Look at a map. See where San Francisco is? Now look at where Eureka is. That's Northern California.) I would go as far as to say, in the emboldened manner of a 'Niners faithful ranting over who had the best NFL dynasty ever, that the resources available amid this bracing stretch of beaches and hills, of mountains and rivers and lakes, surpasses anything Back East.

First, the hard facts. According to a two-year-long Bureau of Labor Statistics study released in 2003, we spend more money per capita on books out here than anywhere in the U.S. (We also spend the most on booze, a not insignificant detail when considering where to set up shop.) That translates into a huge and sophisticated reading audience that keeps our literary community thriving. A look at the lengthy Literary Guide in my paper's Sunday Book Review gives scope to how many book-related events—mostly at independent bookstores—are going on here in any given week. And remember, we have a smaller population than New York or Los Angeles. This isn't even to mention the ever-growing success of LitQuake, the best literary festival in the country you haven't heard about, and the rich variety of marquee names that come to speak at such venues as City Arts and Lectures, the Commonwealth Club and the San Francisco Jewish Community Center. Nor is it to point out the strength of our library programs and facilities.

Second, who is already here speaks to the attraction of the region: MacAdam/Cage, McSweeney's, HarperOne, the Avalon imprints, the university presses, Heyday Books, City Lights Books. (Berkeley alone has, besides Manhattan, the most publishers per capita in the country.) And there are also the magazines and journals—Zzyvaa, TheBeliever, Threepenny Review, Zoetrope, Canteen, Opium, and of course, online, Salon. There are many other publishers and journals here, for the simple reason that there's enough talent to draw from.

That pool includes the impressive talent coming out of the creative writing programs: beyond the Stegner program at Stanford, and the workshops at the Squaw Valley Community of Writers, there are the MFAs at colleges and universities such as San Francisco State and the California College for the Arts. It's a reservoir enriched by our established fiction writers (Amy Tan, Michael Chabon, Dave Eggers, Daniel Handler, Andrew Sean Greer, Alice Sebold, Ann Packer, Isabel Allende), the nonfiction heavyweights (Greil Marcus, Michael Pollan, Wendy Lesser, Mary Roach, Rebecca Solnit, Mark Danner, Po Bronson, Anne Lamott), the veterans (Ishmael Reed, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Herbert Gold, Al Young, Barry Gifford, Thomas Sanchez, Robert Hass, Oakley Hall), and a goldmine of writers the rest of the country needs to read more of (Yiyun Li, ZZ Packer, Daniel Alarcon, Stephen Elliott, Michelle Tea, Peter Plate, Judy Budnitz, Tom Barbash, Jason Roberts, Beth Lisick).

And then there are the intangibles. Beyond the cheap newborn-size burritos that will keep you full all day; beyond the civic engagement with writers (San Francisco created the office of poet laureate some years ago and recently sponsored an international poetry festival); beyond being ground zero for the technological innovations affecting culture and art—as well as the locus of diverse voices is forging what will be considered “American” in the near future—there is a disarming collegiality.

The writing life here is not about succeeding at the other guy's expense; it's about helping each other out. New arrivals are embraced, not viewed as threats. That might sound hippy dippy, but what you call it doesn't matter. This generosity alleviates the lonely, often frustrating grind of writing. It's not a utopia, but often it feels close to something like that.