John Freeman / Sacramento Noir

Akashic Books and City Lights celebrate the publication of

Sacramento Noir

Edited by: John Freeman

Published by Akashic Books

Join John Freeman with Reyna Grande, Maceo Montoya and Naomi J. Williams as they delve into the gritty underbelly of the State's capital.

The Akashic Noir Series’ exploration of California continues with this spellbinding collection of stories curated by Sacramento native John Freeman.

In his introduction, John Freeman writes: “This book is an attempt to . . . invite you into a variety of houses and apartments and spaces all over Sacramento, to imagine lives, not yours, or perhaps like yours, as told by some of the city’s most talented living writers. What freedom is here in words: to travel, to visit, to linger, to hear stories from all across the city, and to some degree across time . . .

“Here is Sacramento in all of its splendor and deep, not-at-all-buried contradictions. A frontier city that quickly used its wealth to gather power. A locale that is somehow not quite sure it is still urban. Darkly compelling, canopied, gusted by river smells, Sacramento emerges from these thirteen stories like a character itself. It’s the kind of place that has sprawled widely enough, and covered enough different landscapes, that it is now many cities, some of which do not interact with each other. Some of which are only remembered in names of neighborhoods which people who once lived there still use with each other: Sakura City. The West End. Broderick. What a joy and vivid dream it is to see these stories here together, between these covers—for all to visit.”

John Freeman is the author and editor of a dozen books, including Wind, Trees, a collection of poems; There’s a Revolution Outside, My Love, coedited with Tracy K. Smith; and Dictionary of the Undoing. A Sacramento native, he lives in New York City, where he is an executive editor at Alfred A. Knopf. Once a month, he hosts the California Book Club for Alta Journal. His work has been translated into twenty-two languages.

Reyna Grande is the author of bestselling memoirs The Distance Between Us and A Dream Called Home, chronicling her experience as an undocumented child immigrant from Mexico. Her novels include Across a Hundred Mountains, Dancing with Butterflies, and A Ballad of Love and Glory. She's the co-editor of Somewhere We Are Human, an anthology of undocumented voices. Her work has received numerous awards, including an American Book Award and the El Premio Aztlán Literary Award, and has been adopted as a common read selection across the country. She teaches at Antioch University and Randolph College's MFA program in creative writing.

Maceo Montoya is an author and visual artist who has published books in a variety of genres, including four works of fiction: The Scoundrel and the Optimist, The Deportation of Wopper Barraza, You Must Fight Them, and Preparatory Notes for Future Masterpieces. Montoya is a professor of Chicana/o Studies and English at the University of California, Davis, and editor of the literary magazine Huizache.

Naomi J. Williams is the author of the novel Landfalls, long-listed for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize. Her short fiction and essays have recently appeared or are forthcoming in LitHub, Bourbon Penn, Electric Literature, the Brevity Blog, and the Sacramento Noir anthology. Honors include a Pushcart Prize, Best American Short Stories honorable mention, Sustainable Arts Foundation fellowship, and residencies at Hedgebrook, Virginia Center for Creative Arts, Vermont Studio Center, Willapa Bay AiR, and Djerassi Resident Artists Program. Educated at Princeton, Stanford, and UC Davis, she teaches currently with the low-residency MFA program at Ashland University in Ohio. A biracial Japanese-American, Williams was born and partly raised in Japan and lives today in Sacramento, California.

This event was made possible by support from the City Lights Foundation.