Featuring great stories, in-depth reporting, beautiful photography, smart thinking — Alta is the magazine and website that bring you everything California.
Contributors
The Inspiration for Alta
Journal of Alta California
Humboldt Grown • A native daughter returns to California’s onetime cannabis capital and discovers unsettling changes.
The Lion King • The last full-time museum taxidermist in the United States inspires a new generation of animal preservationists.
Safe Spaces Available • Monterey County’s Tia Fechter launched One Starfish to provide overnight parking and social services to people living in their cars. Five years later, more cities across California are offering similar programs.
Folsom Prison Blues (Again) • Los Tigres del Norte—the first Latin act to perform at the notorious state penitentiary—reprise Johnny Cash’s 1968 visit, releasing a documentary and a live album packed with political meaning.
The Water Seekers • A Native American hallowed space miraculously remains amid the developed bustle of Westside L.A.
Special K for the Hollywood Set • A $6,000 therapy for severe depression holds promise for treating the “untreatable”—and inspiring creative breakthroughs on the back lot and for the author.
Cold, Clear
Paint
THE LAST WORD
THE HERD WORD • Cowboy poets ride tradition and verse to the stage each year in Elko, Nevada, debunking myths about the Old West—and creating new ones.
First the RUSH Then the BREAKDOWN • Excavating the triumphs and tragedy of a forgotten Los Angeles civil rights champion.
The Play’s Still the Thing • Character and dialogue? We got this. A new generation of female playwrights is shaking up television writers’ rooms across Hollywood.
The TOMB of the UNKNOWN ‘WETBACK’ • Discovering a long-forgotten grave in Orange County—and the secrets it keeps.
THOMAS PYNCHON UNMASKED • The great California writer—if unknowingly—answers our questions about a U.S. Department of Jesus, moving back to the Golden State, and winning a Nobel Prize.
Life of a Ghost Town • The abandoned settlements of the West offer beauty and solace and make us question what happened to drive everyone away—and lure others back.
DEATH of a CALIFORNIO • The mysterious slaying of Francisco Guerrero in 1851 took place as a massive land grab was underway—one that left the Golden State’s Spanish-speaking inhabitants with little.
THE WELL OF THE SCRIBES RESURFACES • After 50 years, a piece of the missing sculpture returns to L.A.’s Central Library—and the search for the rest of it heats up.
Seattle Is Your Oyster • With its charming neighborhoods and distinctive cuisine, the Emerald City is creating a dining scene that proudly embraces tradition and innovation—and is more than a little reminiscent of San Francisco’s.
Everything He Saw
Ribs, Muscle, Bone
The Art of the Essay • Rebecca Solnit is right. Is that enough?
NONFICTION
Her Brother’s Keeper • In a new memoir, Diane Keaton disassembles her family’s narrative.
BIOGRAPHIES
Criminal Intent • Rachel Monroe discusses the radical empathy of true crime.
MYSTERIES/TRUE CRIME
Highway 59 Revisited • Attica Locke explores the mysteries of crime, politics, and race in Heaven, My Home.
FICTION
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood • Charles Yu seeks to bridge the gap between script and novel in Interior Chinatown.
FICTION PICKS
SCIENCE FICTION
Trail of Tears • Joy Harjo reimagines a national narrative in An American Sunrise.
POETRY PICKS
POETRY
Los Angeles Plays Itself • Three new books bridge...