Trailblazer: Delilah Beasley’s California


As part of the Beside the Edge of the World exhibition, a creative collaboration between Clockshop and The Huntington, five different artists created works based on a work from The Huntington's collection—in this instance they investigated ideas of perfection sparked by Thomas More's satirical work Utopia (1516). Trailblazer: Delilah Beasley’s California, a limited-edition publication, fictionalizes the personal life story of one of Los Angeles’ most important early historians.


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In The Not Quite Dark


Following her prize–winning collection Break Any Woman Down, Dana returns with a collection of bold stories set mostly in downtown Los Angeles that examine large issues—love, class, race—and how they influence and define our most intimate moments.


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Praise for In The Not Quite Dark:


“There is an exquisite tension in each of the stories in Dana Johnson’s remarkable collection – couples who look past each other instead of into each other, women who try to negotiate upward mobility, wanting what you can’t have and having what you don’t want. Johnson has, truly, written an unforgettable collection. She is both a storyteller and an exacting observer of the beautiful ugly truths of Los Angeles, class, race, being alive.” —Roxane Gay, author of An Untamed State and Bad Feminist


“In her brilliant collection, Dana Johnson presents a vision of America that is singular and necessary. These are superb stories grappling with the complexities of love and the way it winds through gender and race and class in our nation right now. Johnson is expert at exploring how the world tries to separate us – and how her characters find urgent ways to connect. These are stories radiant with beauty and compassion and clear-sighted, uncompromising wisdom.” —Karen E. Bender, author of Refund, a finalist for the National Book Award


“Newer than tomorrow, the stories in In the Not Quite Dark illuminate the travails of contemporary life faced with aspects of gentrification—social, economic, racial, even sexual. Johnson is the poet of the uneasy place between rising and falling, the pressures of status and humiliation, the precarious moral footing we are all navigating now. A sharp-edged portrait of Los Angeles, and ourselves.” —Janet Fitch, author of White Oleander and Paint It Black


“What a gift to have a new collection of hard-to-shake stories from the inimitable Dana Johnson. She writes about the contradictions of our contemporary moment with an honesty that is gimlet-eyed, rueful, and wickedly funny. But along with implacable honesty there are also deep reserves of generosity in these stories, each one taking our hearts to places we don’t see coming and can’t readily forget.” —Sarah Shun-Lien Bynum, author of Ms. Hempel Chronicles, a finalist for the Pen/Faulkner Award


“In these haunting and beautiful stories, Dana Johnson conjures a definitive portrait of contemporary Los Angeles. Her native eye is infallible, and her voice reigns over the city with grace, wit, and total authority.” —Jim Gavin, author of Middle Men

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She Deserves Everything She Gets


Dana's short story She Deserves Everything She Gets is featured in Issue #216 of The Paris Review. Published in Spring 2016, this issue features Luc Sante on the art of nonfiction, Robert Caro on the art of biography, and additional new fiction by Jensen Beach, Chris Bachelder, Witold Gombrowicz, Benjamin Hale, Craig Morgan Teicher, and Anne-Laure Zevi. Poems by John Ashbery, Mary Jo Bang, Erica Ehrenberg, Amit Majmudar, J. D. McClatchy, Morgan Parker, Mary Ruefle, Frederick Seidel, James Tate, and Cynthia Zarin.


> Available for purchase via Paris Review online.

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Elsewhere, California


We first met Avery in two of the stories featured in Dana's award–winning collection Break Any Woman Down. As a young girl, she and her family escape the violent streets of Los Angeles to a more gentrified existence in suburban West Covina. This average life, filled with school, trips to 7–Eleven to gawk at Tiger Beat magazine, and family outings to Dodger Stadium, is interrupted by a past she cannot escape, personified in the guise of her violent cousin Keith.


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Praise for Elsewhere, California:


“Beautifully wrought. A contemporary bildungsroman with a wise and winning heroine at its heart.” —T.C. Boyle


“A clear-eyed jam on class, race, and love; sassy yet searing.” —Oscar Hijuelos, author of The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love


“Avery’s evolution as a black woman trying to claim her place is as heartbreaking as it is humorous, powerful as it is poignant, because Johnson so assertively confronts those complexities.” —The Los Angeles Times


“Dana Johnson’s extraordinary novel offers an arresting vision of black female identity that transcends color and class even as it reveals its continuing power in our lives. The main character, Avery, is everything at once: struggling and middle-class, black and not-quite-black-enough, sexually invisible and sexually exoticized. Avery is about as complex and compelling a heroine as I’ve read recently, and Elsewhere, California is a luminous, funny, and poignant tale that speaks directly to a whole generation raised in a state of cultural confusion.” —Danzy Senna, author of You Are Free and Caucasia


“I love listening to Avery talk about anything and everything, from the Dodgers to the art world to neighborhood negotiations to certain brands of shorts. Here is a character with an intensely engaging voice, surrounded by an equally riveting cast, all created by a writer who knows how to make words—and people—sparkle on the page.” —Aimee Bender, author of The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake

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Break Any Woman Down


Called “an exciting and gorgeous literary debut” (by Jonathan Ames, author of The Extra Man). Winner of the Flannery O’Connor Award for Short Fiction. The Los Angeles Times praised the debut with: “You can hear Johnson’s voices ringing long after you put the stories down. No character could stay a stranger long in this writer’s hands.” Publishers Weekly noted, “Rich, unhurried layering showcases Johnson’s larger themes. Both hip and elegant, these assured stories simmer and resonate.”


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