Sierra College Press

Dr. Terry Beers

• Professor of English at Santa Clara University
• Director of the California Legacy Project

Dr. Patric Ettinger

• Professor of History at CSU, Sacramento
• Co-Director, Capital Campus Oral History Program
• Author of Imaginary Lines: Border Enforcement and the Origins of Undocumented Immigration, 1882-1930 (University of Texas Press, 2009)

Tom Killion

• Artist and author
• Author and illustrator of The High Sierra of California and Tamalpais Walking: Poetry, Prose and Prints (both in association with Pulitzer Prize recipient Gary Snyder)

Tom Knudson

• Two-time Pulitzer Prize recipient
• Reporter for the Sacramento Bee
• Author of the newspaper series "Majesty and Tragedy: The Sierra in Peril," for which he won the 1992 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service

Gary Kurutz

• Director of Special Collections, California State Library, Sacramento
• Written extensively on the California Gold Rush and California Culture
• Executive Director of the California State Library Foundation
• Previous positions held: 
  • Head Librarian, Sutro Library
  • Library Director, California Historical Society
  • Bibliographer of Western Americana at the Henry E. Huntington Library
  • Head of the publication program of the Book Club of California, 1987-2008

Scott Lankford

• Author of Tahoe Beneath the Surface, co-published by Heyday and Sierra College Press (2010)
• Member of the 1985 American Everest West Ridge Expedition
• Ph.D. in modern thought and literature at Stanford University with a dissertation on John Muir
• Professor of English at Foothill College, he has also served as Foothill's Dean of Language Arts and Co-director of the Foothill College Cultural Diversity Center
• Currently, he is Co-director of the Foothill College Center for a Sustainable Future

John Muir Laws

• Associate of the California Academy of Sciences
• Author and illustrator of Sierra Birds:
  • A Hiker's Guide
  • The Laws Field Guide to the Sierra Nevada
  • The Laws Guide to Drawing Birds
  • The Laws Sketchbook for Nature Journaling
  • The Law Guide to Nature Drawing and Journaling

Beverly Lewis

• Director, Placer-Lake Tahoe Film Office
• Worked three years in the Louisiana State Film Office
• MFA from UCLA School of Film and Television
• Documentarian, recipient of awards from National Educational Film and Video Festival, and the Hollywood Foreign Press Association (the group that awards the Golden Globes)

Malcolm Margolin

• Founder of Heyday Books
• An expert on Native California
• 2008 recipient of the prestigious Hubert Howe Bancroft Award from the UC Berkeley Bancroft Library in recognition of significant achievements in support of historical research and scholarship

Mark McLaughin

• Sierra Nevada weather and cultural historian
• Recipient of the Nevada State Press Association. Awarded on five occasions for his newspaper column

Kim Stanley Robinson

• Science fiction author, winner of 11 major science fiction awards
• Guest author in UC Davis Writing Ambassadors Program
• Recipient of the 2008 Time Hero of the Environment
• Ph.D. in Literature, UC San Diego, 1982
• Humanism, utopia, environmentalism and transcendentalism are major themes in his writings

Jesika Maria Ross

• Co-founder and Director, Art of Regional Change at UC Davis
• Community media developer
• Award-winning documentary film producer
• Co-producer of the award-winning Saving the Sierra: Voices of Conservation in Action public radio and web project

Michael Sanford

• Vice-President of Content Creation for KVIE-PBS Channel 6 in Sacramento
• More than 25 years of experience in television news, programming and production
• Produced segments for CNN, the Discovery Channel and the Travel Channel

Lee Stetson

• Actor best known for his re-creation of John Muir
• Author of The Wild Muir
• Original member of the Board of the Sierra Nevada Conservancy
• Mariposa County Supervisor

Catherine Stifter

• Two-time Peabody Award recipient
• Co-producer of the award-winning Saving the Sierra: Voices of the Conservation in Action public radio and web project

René Yung

• Artistic and Project Director of Chinese Whispers - a project to examine the lives and experiences of the Chinese in the Sierra Nevada region
• Faculty member at City College of San Francisco and owner of René Yung Communications Design
• Artistic and Project Director of Our Oakland: Eastside Stories
• Multidisciplinary artist with record of national and international exhibitions, including the 46th Venice Biennale (1995)

California Glaciers

About the Book
A victim to climate change, California’s glaciers are receding at an alarming rate. Award-winning photographer and nature writer Tim Palmer takes us on a trek into the backcountry to experience the remaining glaciers up close, to observe the raw power that for millennia has carved glacial valleys, replenished our lakes, rivers, and streams, and supported a bounty of life that may soon be in jeopardy with the loss of one of the state’s most vital and awe-inspiring natural wonders.

Gold Rush Stories: 49 Tales of Seekers, Scoundrels, Loss and Luck

By Gary Noy

About the Book
Gold Rush Stories: 49 Tales of Seekers, Scoundrels, Loss and Luck explores the deeply human stories of the California Gold Rush generation, drawing out all the brutality, tragedy, humor, and prosperity as lived by those who experienced it. In less than ten years, more than 300,000 people made the journey to California, some from as far away as Chile and China. Many of them were dreamers seeking a better life, like Mifflin Wistar Gibbs, who eventually became the first African American judge, and Eliza Farnham, an early feminist who founded California’s first association to advocate for women’s civil rights.

The Illuminated Landscape

Edited by Gary Noy and Rick Heide
Illustrated by Joe Medeiros
Foreward by Robert Hanna

About the Book
The essays, poetry, and stories presented in The Illuminated Landscape encompass the entire Sierra Nevada experience. With the power of the written word to inspire, energize, and challenge, this anthology shines a light on what is at risk for the Sierra Nevada today and reinforces the importance of sustaining its beauty and ecological diversity.

King Sequoia: The Tree That Inspired a Nation, Created Our National Park System, and Changed the Way We Think About Nature

By William C. Tweed
Foreward by Joe Medeiros

About the Book
From a towering tree, one of California’s preeminent naturalists unspools a history that echoes across generations and continents. Former park ranger William C. Tweed takes readers on a tour of the Big Trees in a narrative that travels deep into the Sierras, around the West, and all the way to New Zealand; and in doing so he explores the American public’s evolving relationship with sequoias.

Featuring an entrancing cast of adventurers, researchers, politicians, and environmentalists, King Sequoia reveals how one tree species has transformed Americans’ connection to the natural world.

Sierra Stories

By Gary Noy

The Sierra Nevada, with its 14,000-foot granite mountains, crystalline lakes, conifer forests, and hidden valleys, has long been the domain of dreams, attracting the heroic and the delusional, the best of humanity and the worst. Stories abound, and characters emerge so outlandish and outrageous that they have to be real.

Could the human imagination have invented someone like Eliza Gilbert? Born in Limerick, Ireland, in 1818, she transformed herself into Lola Montez, born in Seville, Spain, in 1823, and brought to the Gold Country the provocative “Spider Dance”—impersonating a young woman repelling a legion of angry spiders under her petticoats.

Or multimillionaire George Whittell Jr., who was frequently spotted driving around Lake Tahoe in a luxurious convertible with his pet lion in the front seat. These, and scores more, spill out of the pages of this well-illustrated and lively tribute to the Sierra.

Tahoe Beneath the Surface

By Scott Lankford
Cover art by Tom Killion

About the Book
Lake Tahoe transformed America, and not just once but many times over—from the earliest Ice Age civilizations to the mysterious death of Marilyn Monroe. It even played a hidden role in the American conquest of California, the launch of the Republican Party, and the birth of John Steinbeck’s first novel. Along the way, Lake Tahoe found the time to invent the ski industry, spark the sexual revolution, and win countless Academy Awards.

Tahoe beneath the Surface brings this hidden history of America’s largest mountain lake to life through the stories of its most celebrated residents and visitors over the last ten thousand years.

Standing Guard: Telling Our Stories

Edited by Dr. Debra Sutphen and Lynn Medeiros, Sierra College history professors

Designed by Tom Fillebrown, Sierra College Assistant Professor of Applied Art and Design

About the Book
Standing Guard: Telling Our Stories is a collection of oral histories from survivors of the internment camps, Japanese American veterans, and Placer County residents, recounting their experiences during the time. 

Sierra Foothills Nature Guide: A Guide to Biology and Ecology of the Sierra College Nature Trail (Fourth Edition)

Edited and updated by Shawna Martinez, Sierra College Professor of Biological Sciences along with colleagues and students 
Illustrated by Sarah Tomich, Ken Kirkland and Heather Mehl

About the Book
As knowledge of the Nature Trail area has expanded, the guide has grown as well. This edition features the flora and fauna one can see while exploring Sierra College’s nature trail and much of the Sierra foothills. The newest edition of the guide is beautifully illustrated and includes detailed drawings and descriptions of plants, mammals, birds, reptiles and amphibians common to the foothill regions of California.

Sierra Stories/Gold Rush Stories/Hellacious California

Written by Gary Noy
Introduction by Gary Kurutz

About the Book
Lured by boons of gold and other exploitable resources, California’s settler population mushroomed under Mexican and early American control, and this period of rapid transformation gave rise to a freewheeling culture best epitomized by its entertainments. Hellacious California tours the rambunctious and occasionally appalling amusements of the Golden State: gambling, gun duels, knife fights, gracious dining and gluttony, prostitution, fandangos, cigars, con artistry, and the demon drink. Historian Gary Noy unearths myriad primary sources, many of which have never before been published, to spin his true tall tales that are by turns humorous and horrifying.

Sierra Wildflowers: A Hiker's Guide

Written and illustrated by John Muir Laws

About the Book
From sprawling fields of showy hillside poppies, lupines, and paintbrushes in the foothills to orchids, lilies, and primroses in the higher meadows of our national parks, the Sierra Nevada is one of the premier wildflower destinations in California. Naturalist John Muir Laws has adapted his painted-from-life flower illustrations from The Laws Field Guide to the Sierra Nevada into a lightweight yet durable guidebook to the area's florae. Sierra Wildflowers includes the most common species that you will encounter, with fully updated common and scientific names. Flowers are organized by color and shape, making identification easy for flower enthusiasts of all experience levels.

Hansen's Field Guide to the Birds of the Sierra Nevada

Written and illustrated by Keith Hansen, Edward C. Beedy and Adam Donkin

About the Book
Identify and learn about more than two hundred and fifty birds of the Sierra Nevada. From the tiniest hummingbirds to condors with nine-foot wingspans; from lower-elevation wrens to the rasping nutcrackers of the High Sierra; from urban House Sparrows to wild water–loving American Dippers, Hansen’s Field Guide to the Birds of the Sierra Nevada showcases artist-naturalist Keith Hansen’s sixteen-year project to illustrate the birds of the Sierra. Paired with stunningly detailed portraits is text informed by more than one hundred years of the authors’ collective birding experience—prose that while firmly grounded in expertise will nonetheless delight readers with its whimsy, allusion, and affection.