Learn more about the landscape of independent publishing in California, the latest in CLMP’s series of spotlights aligned with regional independent booksellers associations across the country. This spotlight features presses and magazines based in the area, local book fairs and festivals, and regional awards, as well as books set in or about California.
Books Set in California
Poetry
Monster Mash by Susan Browne (Four Way Books | March 15, 2025)
This poetry collection “transcribes a true emergency in the poet’s direct sight—wilderness and civilization smoldering alike in the California wildfires.”
(Distributed by Chicago Distribution Center. ISBN: 9781961897267)
In Praise of Late Wonder by Lee Herrick (Gunpowder Press | September 1, 2024)
In this collection, California Poet Laureate Herrick writes “with openness about his adoption from Korea in more than 25 new memoir-like prose poems.”
(Distributed by Ingram. ISBN: 9781957062174)
Ankle-Deep In Pacific Water by E. Hughes (Haymarket Books | September 27, 2024)
Hughes’s debut collection of lyric poems interrogates “the generational implications of the Great Migration to Northern California.”
(Distributed by Consortium Book Sales and Distribution. ISBN: 9798888903049)
Between Latitudes by Michelle Latvala (Green Writers Press | March 26, 2025)
This debut poetry collection is “rooted in both the practice of forging a life in the boreal forest of Alaska and finding footing in contemporary California.”
(Distributed by Independent Publishers Group. ISBN: 9798990480186)
I ask about what falls away by Jason Magabo Perez (Kaya Press | March 26, 2024)
Perez’s second poetry collection is “an extended elegy set in the alleyways and Pacific-bound boulevards of San Diego, California, during the current global health crisis.”
(Distributed by Distributed Art Publishers. ISBN: 9781885030894)
Fiction
The Coast by John Enright (Black Heron Press | May 1, 2024)
Set in San Francisco and the Bay Area, this novel is “about a young man’s passage, about three lives evolving over forty years.”
(Distributed by Independent Publishers Group. ISBN: 9781936364428)
A Bridge Home by Mona Alvarado Frazier (Arte Público Press | May 31, 2024)
Set in 1970s California, this YA novel “highlights elements of California history that are often overlooked, portraying the strength of a community in giving its people a bridge to a better life.”
(Distributed by Arte Público Press. ISBN: 9781558859951)
Out of the Rain by J. Malcolm Garcia (Seven Stories Press | July 16, 2024)
This debut novel “takes us into the growing world of the homeless in the United States, particularly in San Francisco.”
(Distributed by Penguin Random House. ISBN: 9781644213865)
Marisolandia by Michelle Cruz Gonzales (WTAW Press | March 25, 2025)
In this speculative novel, “the new Republic of California is forcing Marisol, a Mexicana woman, to marry a white man to create a homogenous race in the new nation.”
(Distributed by Independent Publishers Group. ISBN: 9798987719718)
Stories from the Edge of the Sea by Andrew Lam (Red Hen Press | March 25, 2025)
The short stories in this collection “explore love and loss, lust and grief, longing and heartbreaks through the lives of Vietnamese immigrants and their children in California.”
(Distributed by Publishers Group West. ISBN: 9781636282428)
City of Smoke and Sea by Malia Márquez (Red Hen Press | March 18, 2025)
According to Andromeda Romano-Lax, this is a “delightful and inventive novel of hidden roots, unseen worlds, magical alliances, and personal reinvention, bringing the many layers of Los Angeles to life.”
(Distributed by Publishers Group West. ISBN: 9780963952837)
American Playground by Michael Isaac Shokrian (The Thieving Magpie | May 2, 2025)
In this novel, “7-year-old Mishel Manoucherian’s family has packed up their life in Tehran and moved to Los Angeles, launching him headfirst into a disorienting new world of social and schoolyard expectations.”
(Distributed by Ingram. ISBN: 9798992541700)
Lady Without Land by Krystal Anali Vazquez (Texas Review Press/The University Press of SHSU | November 1, 2024)
This debut novel “is a story told in fragments about señorita who feels lost in and lost without Los Angeles.”
(Distributed by Texas A&M University Press. ISBN: 9781680033908)
Nonfiction
Life Span by Molly Giles (WTAW Press | June 4, 2024)
This memoir in flash form recounts Giles’ many trips across the Golden Gate Bridge “since the first sunny day in 1945 when she rode from San Francisco to Sausalito in a moving van with her father.”
(Distributed by Independent Publishers Group. ISBN: 9798987719756)
Unbound: A Book of AIDS by Aaron Shurin (Nightboat Books | January 24, 2023)
Unbound is Shurin’s “intimate account of life in San Francisco in the 80s and 90s during the apex of the AIDS epidemic.”
(Distributed by Consortium Book Sales and Distribution. ISBN: 9781643621548)
Independent Publishers Based in California
9vt\5
Antiphony
Ark Press
Aunt Lute Books
Beyond Baroque
Big Yes Press
Blue Horse Press
Canis Major Books
Cantine Press
Cider Press Review
Cordella Press
DoppelHouse Press
The Fabulist Words & Art
Fieldmouse Press
Foglifter Press
Flume Press
Foofaraw Press
Gunpowder Press
Hollyridge Press
Inlandia Books
Insert Press
Jaded Ibis Press
Jambu Press
Jamii Publishing
Kaya Press
McSweeney’s
Moon Tide Press
North Atlantic Books
Old Scratch Press
Omnidawn Publishing
Pelekinesis / Bamboo Dart Press
Philippine American Writers and Artists
punctum books
Red Hen Press
Red Ogre Review
Scarlet Tanager Books
Sixteen Rivers Press
Starlite Pulp
Tebot Bach
The Thieving Magpie
Transit Books
Two Lines Press
Type Eighteen Books
Wet Cement Press
World Stage Press
Write Bloody
WTAW Press
Zio Apollo Press
Zoetic Press
Print Literary Magazines Based in California
¡Pa’lante!
Alta Journal
Christmas Spirits
Cordella Magazine
Contrapuntos
Dreamworldgirl Zine
Dulcet Literary Magazine
Emergence Magazine
The Fabulist Words & Art
Foglifter
Fruitslice
Grasslimb
Haight Ashbury Literary Journal
Humana Obscura
Journal X (Xinachtli Journal)
Kings River Review
Lana Turner Journal
L’Esprit Literary Review
Lone Mountain Literary Society
Los Angeles Review of Books
Mantis Journal
McSweeney’s
Midnight Mind Magazine
Months To Years
MUSE Literary Journal
Poetry International
Reed Magazine
Sacramento Literary Review
San Pedro River Review
Santa Barbara Literary Journal
Santa Clara Review
Slant’d
Spectrum Literary Journal
Stained Silk Magazine
Starlite Pulp
The Rebis
VOLT
Zaum Magazine
ZYZZYVA
Book Fairs and Festivals in California
Bay Area Book Festival
Berkeley, CA
2026: May 30-31
Litquake and Lit Crawl SF
San Francisco, CA
2025: October 9-25
Liwanag Lit Fest
Long Beach, CA
2025: October 25
Los Angeles Times Festival of Books
Los Angeles, CA
2026: April 18-19
Printed Matter’s LA Art Book Fair
Los Angeles, CA
2025: May 15-18
Regional Awards
California Book Awards
The California Book Awards, given by the Commonwealth Club, are awarded annually to books of poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction published in the previous year about California or by a California author.
Golden Poppy Awards
The Golden Poppies are given by the California Independent Booksellers Association to recognize the most distinguished books written by writers and artists who make California their home.
