Keenan Norris
Keenan Norris’s latest book, Chi Boy: Native Sons and Chicago Reckonings, was published in 2023. He is the author of the novel The Confession of Copeland Cane, which received the 2022 Northern California Book Award, as well as the novels Lustre and Brother and the Dancer. Native to the Inland Empire, he now lives in San Leandro, California.
Allensworth and Black Resilience on Juneteenth
This Central Valley town was founded in 1908 to offer Black people respite from the Jim Crow South, but it was stymied by racism and failed. Today, it’s a state park where broken dreams exist alongside hope.
Mirrors and Minds
What do two high-profile plagiarism accusations even mean in the time of ChatGPT?
An Alta Journal Special Report: A State of Extremes
A tour of community colleges reveals that students’ hardships and opportunities—like all things in California—are unequally distributed.
She Who Remembers
As a playwright, an activist, and Oakland’s inaugural poet laureate, Ayodele Nzinga boldly forges new narratives from the Black diaspora.
Being a ‘Double Minority’ Made Me a Better Writer
The tragic closing of Mills College and the beautiful absurdity of being one of a handful of Black men at a private, predominantly women’s school in one of America’s Blackest cities.
One Coyote
Coming of age during the 1990s in an Inland Empire suburb amid dogs, snakes, scorpions—and racism.