Where I Go: Redondo Beach Brings Me Back to Myself

I’m the Keeper of My Family’s Memories. My Hometown Is Where I Uncover the Layers of Our Past

Late one afternoon last year, during a troubled time in my life, I took a long walk on the beach.

A day of rain was ending. Watery sunlight shone on glossy streets. It was a brief lull in California’s unrelenting winter. To the west, a layer of cirrus clouds announced another storm approaching. A high wind chased the departing rain, churning the sea into a tangle of waves.

I had been here—the Redondo Beach shoreline at the southern end of Santa Monica Bay—many times before. I spent most of my childhood in …

What’s the Cost of a Family Secret?

A California Writer on the Aunt He Never Knew He Had—and the Lessons She Taught Him

Is there a family trait more common than keeping secrets?

These secrets can have hidden costs. When we leave a place or person behind, we don’t know what becomes of them. …

The 2023 Zócalo Book Prize Honors Explorations of Community | Zocalo Public Square • Arizona State University • Smithsonian

The 2023 Zócalo Book Prize Honors Explorations of Community

We’re Looking for the Best Nonfiction Books on Human Connection

Since 2011, Zócalo Public Square’s annual book prize has recognized the U.S.-published nonfiction book that best enhances our understanding of community and the forces that strengthen or undermine human connectedness …

Where I Go: The Best Basketball Court in Lisbon

At Campo dos Mártires da Pátria, There’s Only One Shared Language, and Everyone Is Welcome

When I arrived in Lisbon in late 2016, I was in the best basketball shape of my life. I had just finished a master’s degree in Scotland, where I had …

Why I Drove 80 Miles Across Southern California on Surface Streets

The Road to the Inland Empire Is Paved With Good Memories—And Gratitude for Freeways

Don’t ever complain about freeway traffic, especially around my mother.

“You’re lucky to have freeways—when I was a kid, we didn’t have freeways,” she used to say.

But that didn’t stop my …

Theater Understands Your Holiday Dinner Angst

Family Tables, Real and Imagined, Serve Up ‘Birthrights, Grudges, Feuds, Illicit Unions, and Deeply Buried Secrets’

This is the time of year when families come together, crossing county and state lines and national borders, traversing bodies of water and mountain ranges that made cannibals of our …