Heather Scott Partington is a writer, teacher, and book critic. She is a regular contributor to Alta Journal. She is the winner of an emerging critic fellowship from the National Book Critics Circle and the Critic-in-Residence for UC Riverside’s Palm Desert MFA. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times Book Review, The Washington Post, USA Today, The Los Angeles Times, and The Los Angeles Review of Books, among other publications. She lives in Elk Grove, California, with her husband and two kids.
Kathryn Ma’s The Chinese Groove is a bildungsroman.
The characters in Manuel Muñoz’s The Consequences are hesitant to reveal too much.
Tess Gunty’s The Rabbit Hutch is a first novel of uncommon power.
In Mecca, Susan Straight shows us ourselves.
Judith Freeman’s MacArthur Park represents a homecoming—in more ways than one.
In The Mysteries, Marisa Silver embodies the inner lives of two young girls.
In Kathy Fiscus, William Deverell reconstructs an American tragedy.
In her novel Vera, Carol Edgarian revisits the Great San Francisco Earthquake of 1906.
The Desert Notebooks author reveals why the Mojave is a great place to ask really big questions, namely: Why are we here?
The author’s memoir, Unforgetting, explores the connections between violence in El Salvador and the United States.
In A Kingdom of Tender Colors, Seth Greenland recalls his cancer diagnosis and recovery with humor and grace.
The mystery author explains why A Soldier’s Story is her favorite whodunit.
The author and Alta contributor picks Jim Thompson’s The Killer Inside Me as his top noir classic.
The Edgar Award–winning mystery writer takes a stab at a classic.
The prolific novelist explains why, just like the beat of a great film score, he can’t shake Fast One.
“What does it mean to be a good person during horrible, unjust times?”
The city of Fresno, Latinx heritage, and family figure prominently in the poet’s debut collection.
The author of Cruising writes about how sexual encounters with male strangers provided him with “solace and acceptance.”
The author discusses his influences, his work, and the new stories that will emerge from this historic moment in time.
The acclaimed writer considers the 1918 flu, recommends sci-fi authors, and discusses his novel The End of October.
The California author discusses her recent work, favorite sci-fi books, and where the pandemic will take fiction.
The Companions author discusses her new novel, favorite science-fiction titles, and what it’s like to write during a pandemic.
The Gangsterland series examines identity and the moral consequences of violence.
Sixty essays tackle a question of identity: Who were our mothers before they became mothers?
