The only true voyage of discovery, the only fountain of Eternal Youth, would be not to visit strange lands but to possess other eyes, to behold the universe through the eyes of another, of a hundred others, to behold the hundred universes that each of them beholds, that each of them is.
—Marcel Proust, In Search of Lost Time
When Alta Journal was barely an idea, just being born, we knew that our success would depend on the talents of writers and artists—not just journalists but people who had written novels, histories, biographies, travelogues, memoirs, screenplays, poems. The attention spans of readers and viewers were growing shorter. The internet had the immediacy of live television. It could provide a global audience with news, sports, and business events and offer political and business figures a channel for capturing and monetizing our attention. MS NOW host Chris Hayes has written about this new economy brilliantly in his book The Sirens’ Call: How Attention Became the World’s Most Endangered Resource.
But the cost to compete for that huge audience was more than a startup like ours could raise from investors. Plus, we would be swimming against the tide. I began to think about economist Michael Porter’s dictum that a business should compete to be different. Identify an audience and serve them extraordinary value. Don’t worry about size; worry about whether you are actually delivering something of value to an audience you understand and want to satisfy.
Sports and war stories speak the vocabulary of victory. There is one winner, and the rest are losers. But in a capitalist economy, there is more complexity. Not all customers want the same thing, the one “best” thing. Many want to satisfy personal goals, and they’re willing to patronize a variety of products and experiences to achieve satisfaction.
We thought: Our aim should be to connect writers and artists with these people, with those who want to discover new voices, new perspectives. To see the world with other eyes. To travel outside their own experience. As Proust suggested.
This Publisher’s Note appears in Issue 35 of Alta Journal.
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As a quarterly, we are not your best source of information for breaking news, nor are we able to offer daily commentary on sporting events or business headlines. But we do hope to engage your imagination, introduce new authors, feed your reading habit, and, by publishing writers who have the skill and desire to describe their varied experiences, help you look through new eyes.
We strive to be fearless and careful about facts, and we’re disinclined to offer policy solutions but widely interested in art, culture, adventure, ideas. We’re dedicated to making sure you get value for your time and attention.
Every April, we focus our cover package on stories about authors, books, and literary culture. This year is no different. In the special section “We Love Book Clubs,” we present a series of articles about the enduring appeal of these groups and the joys of reading with others. We visit with women who’ve been meeting monthly for 30 years through thick and thin, including careers, children, and loss, and with inmates at the Santa Barbara County Jail who are reading authors like Pico Iyer and Harper Lee. We publish an anonymous dispatch from the front lines of Silicon Valley’s most elite gathering. California Book Club host John Freeman describes how his mother inspired his love for sharing books with others (nearly 40,000 people have registered for our free monthly group, which celebrated its fifth anniversary in fall 2025). And in between, we cover everything from etiquette advice to facts and figures to celebrities whose endorsements can turn a multiyear labor of love into an overnight bestseller.
Inside, you’ll also find provocative articles by Blythe Roberson, about the battle for Montana’s Great Plains; Charles Glass, on being John Wayne’s chauffeur; and Jeff Gordinier, on the exciting food culture in Oceanside, California. Oh, and we also have a fun take on that most misunderstood of bucktooth creatures, the beaver.
We hope this issue—and each that has come before and will come after—delights you as something original and different. We aim to earn your attention. That’s our measure of success.•
Will Hearst is the editor and publisher of Alta Journal, which he founded in 2017. He is the board chair of Hearst, one of the nation’s largest diversified media and information companies. Hearst is a grandson of company founder William Randolph Hearst.
