Submit! Heyday's "Best of California"

I first heard about Heyday's latest project on last week's broadcast of Bibliocracy - and I love it. Check it out:

...Stimulated by what has been coming our way, Heyday has begun to search out the freshest and most thought-provoking of this new material for what we envision as an annual "Best of California" anthology. We invite our friends and colleagues to help us out. While we are looking for selections that take a sweeping view of California identity, we are especially looking for articles and stories that shed light on specific aspects of California life—changing social customs, natural history, government, business, the arts, etc. A portrait of an individual life, reflections on one's garden, or even an account of a restaurant meal can sometimes teach us more than an ambitious social critique. All genres (fiction, creative nonfiction, essays, etc.) are welcome. We're seeing amazing material from small literary magazines, trade journals, and mainstream media alike...

...To help narrow our searches, insure a timely perspective, and accommodate intellectual property/copyright issues, we are specifically looking for pieces that have been published in a magazine or literary journal between July 2009 and July 2010. We unfortunately cannot at this time accept previously unpublished pieces, excerpts from books, or most material published by newspapers (particularly articles that the newspaper owns the copyright to). Anything California-related is welcome, but the following are especially appreciated: pieces published in small or obscure journals or literary magazines that might not be on our radar, and pieces published in places we might not think to look because the publication doesn't regularly publish California-specific material.

If something along these lines catches your eye, please let us know by emailing bestofcalifornia@heydaybooks.com by July 1, 2010. Please include the title of the piece, the magazine in which it was published, and the date when it appeared in the magazine. We would be additionally grateful for a URL to an online version of the piece if one exists.

For more information on this project, click here.

For those of you who don't know, Heyday is an independent, nonprofit publisher whose mission is to promote awareness of California's history and cultures. They're great.

(Image above from Tamalpais Walking: Poetry, History, and Prints (Heyday Books, $50) by artist Tom Killion.)
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