Wallowing in the flood of magazines submitted to The Best American Essays each year had to be one of my fondest pleasures as its series editor from 1986 to my retirement in 2023. Some glossy and exotically scented; others drab and unadorned; some famous and others obscure; some looking like works of art and others presenting themselves as sober and serious pamphlets. Though It may be hard to believe, I diligently reviewed and often paged through each and every one. But there were so many to get through I sadly had time for anything but the essays. Years ago, I would pause to enjoy every New Yorker cartoon but I soon had to skip that distraction after the explosion of online publications doubled, then tripled, my required reading.
During those thirty-eight years with the series, I came across a number of extraordinary print journals, stunning in their graphics and design—magazines that I simply enjoyed holding in my hands. Yet I can’t recall any that impressed me more than Alta, a California quarterly founded by William R. Hearst III in 2017. A lavishly oversized (13” x 10”) journal with sumptuous art and photography and sturdy in its perfect binding, Alta—in the words of editorial director, Blaise Zerega—“celebrate(s) the power and beauty of print.” But its beauty is not just skin deep. Each issue contains a diverse array of exceptional essays and outstanding literary journalism along with fiction, poetry, profiles, reviews, and commentary. There are even cartoons and puzzles. I enjoy not knowing what to expect from issue to issue, something that is unfortunately not true of many magazines. Ostensibly a California magazine, Alta doesn’t have the feel of a typical regional periodical. That may be because California has become so central to American culture; as Zerega aptly puts it: “What happens here happens everywhere.”
But I think Alta is not your average state or regional magazine for another reason: much of its driving energy is outright and unapologetically literary. Just look at a special commemorative issue, “Joan Didion: A Tribute” (Spring 2022, see the cover above). Along with some remarkable photographs of Didion with family and friends, the issue (a collector’s item for Didion fans) contains essays and commentary on her life and work by her nephew Griffin Dunne, David L. Ulin, Lisa Kennedy, Karl Taro Greenfield, Bret Easton Ellis, and other distinguished writers. There are also a few bonuses: a guide to Didion’s California, an elegy by Anita Kunz, and a real treat—the recently unearthed commencement address Didion delivered at UC Riverside in 1975. The address opens: “I’ve never talked to this many people, but this is not my first engagement as a commencement lecturer.”
Didion’s still timely lecture is introduced by one of my favorite essayists, David L. Ulin, who is Alta’s book review editor and also the editor of the definitive Library of America editions of Didion’s fiction and nonfiction—The 1960s & 70s and The 1980s & 90s. Ulin’s essay “Bed” was selected by André Aciman for The Best American Essays (2020). Anyone unfamiliar with Ulin’s writing should look at The Lost Art of Reading: Books and Resistance in Troubled Times (second edition, 2018) and the delightful collection of essays, Sidewalking: Coming to Terms with Los Angeles (2015), a book I came across by chance when passing a used bookshop while walking the sidewalks of New York City.
In its latest issue, Alta continues its coverage of the literary moment with features on several prominent authors (“LA Storytellers,” #27). You will find David Ulin here, too. His “American Diction” offers a fascinating profile of the brilliant and multi-talented novelist Percival Everett and a look at his newest novel, James. In the same issue, John Freeman, the essayist, critic, and poet (Maps; The Park; Wind, Trees), interviews an author he considers “one of the most revolutionary thinkers in America”—Viet Thanh Nguyen—and pays special attention to his recent memoir, A Man of Two Faces (2023). Obviously, despite the issue’s title, these “storytellers” are not just part of the Los Angeles literary world. They represent contemporary American writing at its best.
I should add that the print journal is just one element of what might be called The “Alta Experience.” As its editor and publisher, Will Hearst, says: “Since its founding, Alta has grown from a beautiful quarterly print magazine into a vibrant and committed community.” Click here for more information about this stunning magazine.
Robert Atwan founded The Best American Essays in 1986 and served as the series editor until his retirement with the 2023 volume. From time to time he spotlights essays, articles, and periodicals that he believes deserve special attention. (See his previous commendation of Raritan: A Quarterly Review and its wonderful appreciation of Tolstoy’s War and Peace by the late Marjorie Perloff).