Gerald Haslam
Gerald Haslam (born March 18, 1937) is the author credited with having created an awareness of "the other California" (in a book of the same name), the state's untrendy small town and rural reaches. A native of Oildale in the Bakersfield area, he has often written about the Great Central Valley (also in a book of the same name), about country music (Workin' Man Blues), about the despair and exultation of blue collar people in a golden state (That Constant Coyote, Condor Dreams, Straight White Male, etc.), winning numerous literary awards. Reviewer David Peck labeled him "the quintessential California writer."
Early Life and Education
Haslam was born in Bakersfield, the son of an oil worker. Growing up he worked as farm field hand, a store clerk, and an oil field roustabout. He served in the U.S. Army from 1958 to 1960. He attended San Francisco State University, receiving an A.B. in 1963 and an M.A. in 1965. He completed a Ph.D. from the Union Graduate School in 1980.[1]
Career at Sonoma State University
Haslam taught at Sonoma State University (SSU) from 1967 to 1997 as a professor of English. Now a professor emeritus at SSU, he also teaches for the Fromm Institute for Lifelong Learning at the University of San Francisco, and serves as an adjunct professor for the Union Graduate School.
He is also the father of computer-game innovator Fred Haslam.
Publications by Gerald Haslam
Fiction
- Okies: Selected Stories (1st edition, 1973, New West Publications, 2nd ed, 1974; 3rd ed, Peregrine-Smith, 1975)
- Masks: A Novel (Old Adobe Press, 1976)
- The Wages of Sin: Collected Stories (Duck Down Press/ Windriver Books, 1980)
- Hawk Flights: Visions of the West (Seven Buffaloes Press, 1983)
- Snapshots: Glimpses of the Other California (Devil Mountain Books, 1985)
- The Man Who Cultivated Fire (Capra Press, 1987)
- That Constant Coyote: California Stories (Univ. of Nevada Press, 1990)
- Condor Dreams & Other Fictions (Univ.of Nevada Press, 1994)
- The Great Tejon Club Jubilee (Devil Mountain Books, 1996)
- Manuel and the Madman (Thwack! Pow! Productions, 2000)
- Straight White Male (Univ. of Nevada Press, 2000)
- Haslam's Valley (Heyday Books, 2005)
- Grace Period (Univ. of Nevada Press, 2006)
Non-Fiction
- The Language of the Oil Fields (Old Adobe Press, 1972)
- Voices of a Place: Social and Literary Essays from the Other California (Devil Mountain Books, 1987)
- Coming of Age in California (Devil Mountain Books 1990; second, expanded edition, 2000)
- The Other California (Capra Press, 1990; second, expanded edition, Univ. of Nevada Press, 1994)
- The Great Central Valley: California's Heartland (with photographers Stephen Johnson & Robert Dawson; Univ. of California Press, 1993)
- Workin' Man Blues: Country Music in California (Univ. of California Press, 1999)
Anthologies
- (ed.) Forgotten Pages of American Literature (Houghton-Mifflin, 1970)
- (ed.) Western Writing (University of New Mexico Press, 1974)
- (ed. with James D. Houston) California Heartland: Writing from the Great Central Valley (Capra Press, 1978)
- (ed. with J. Golden Taylor, et al.) Literary History of the American West (Texas Christian University Press, 1987)
- (ed.) Many Californias: Literature from the Golden State (University of Nevada Press, 1992; second edition, 1999)
- (ed. with Alexandra R. Haslam) Where Coyotes Howl and Wind Blows Free: Growing Up in the West (Univ of Nevada Press, 1995)
- (ed.) Jack London's Golden State: Selected California Writings (Heyday Books, 1999)
Booklets and Monographs
- William Eastlake (Steck-Vaughn Southwest Writers' Series, 1970)
- (ed.) Afro-American Oral Literature (Harper & Row, 1974)
- Jack Schaefer (Boise State University Western Writers' Series, 1976)
- Voices of a Place: The Great Central Valley (California Academy of Sciences, 1986)
- Lawrence Clark Powell (Boise State University Western Writers' Series, 1992)
- (with Stephen Glasser) Out of the Slush Pile (Poets & Writers Inc., 1993)
- The Horned Toad (Thwack! Pow! Productions, 1995)
- An Instructor's Guide to Where Coyotes Howl and Wind Blows Free (Univ. of Nevada Press, 1996)
- Gerald Haslam in Conversation with Jonah Raskin (Sonoma County Literary Arts Guild, 2006)
Notes
- ^ Contemporary Authors, Volume 197, p. 168.