California Sun Podcast

George J. Sanchez, a USC professor and author of the new book "Boyle Heights: How a Los Angeles Neighborhood Became the Future of American Democracy," shares his appreciation for his birthplace, the Boyle Heights neighborhood of Los Angeles. He sees it as a rare living example of the great melting pot of ethnic and cultural diversity that was supposed to define America.

Rosecrans Baldwin, a novelist and journalist, adds his unique voice in trying to make sense of what he calls the “city-state” of Los Angeles. He talks about L.A. as welcoming but somehow detached from the rest of America. While Baldwin argues that no single story can possibly represent all of L.A., in his new book "Everything Now," he adds to the canon of LA. writers trying to define 5,000 square miles and 88 cities.

Steve Wasserman was born and raised in Berkeley, but launched his literary life in Los Angeles, first as deputy editor of the Los Angeles Times then as the long-time editor of the Los Angeles Times Book Review. He then sampled a rich life among the New York publishing elites. In 2016, Wasserman and his 15,000-book library came home. He talks to us as the publisher of Berkeley's Heyday Books, an imprint dedicated to social justice and California's rich history and natural abundance.

In January, Colleen McCain Nelson was named executive editor of the Sacramento Bee and the regional editor for McClatchy’s California news outlets, including the Fresno Bee, the Modesto Bee, the Tribune in San Luis Obispo, and the Merced Sun-Star. A journalist since high school, she talks to us about the value of local news, the future of printed newspapers, and how we can keep tabs on our state and local leaders.

Mick LaSalle, author of his new book "Dream State," shows how movies have historically captured the essence of California. For almost a century, the movies have defined the California dream and projected it out to the world. The long-time film critic for the San Francisco Chronicle talks about the mythology of California and the big screen, the future of movie stars, and Hollywood navel-gazing.

Justin Zhu was fired from Iterable, the successful marketing startup he founded. The reasons given to him included his use of LSD, inappropriate attire (even by Silicon Valley standards), and giving secrets to a reporter. Unstated, he believes, were issues of race. His story provides a glimpse of what it’s really like in the world of startups — the hours, the egos, the money, and the power of self-delusion about changing the world

Denise Hamilton is the editor of the just-published anthology "Speculative Los Angeles." In the past writers like Harlan Ellison, Ray Bradbury, and Philip K. Dick represented the dark fantasy life of the city. Now a new generation of writers takes on that dark life for the 21st century.

Joel Selven, a music journalist and author of the new book “Hollywood Eden," tells the story of the young artists and musicians who came together at the dawn of the 1960s to create the sound of the California dream. It's the story of how West Los Angeles's University High School class of 1958 — which included Jan & Dean and Nancy Sinatra — helped create an image of the West Coast as an idyllic land of sand and surf.

Michael Storper, one of the world's leading economic geographers and a professor at UCLA’s Luskin School of Public Affairs, goes deep into the history and resulting contemporary problems facing Los Angeles and the Bay Area. He explains why some cities grow economically, while others decline.

The writer Ron Brownstein takes us back to 1974 Los Angeles, a period he views as a cultural and political hinge point. It was during that year — as Brownstein details in his new book, "Rock Me on The Water" — that Los Angeles reached its creative peak, transforming movies, music, television, and politics, and forever cementing the upheaval of the 1960s into our culture.