Category talk:California writers

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I removed Manuel Castells from this list, because

(1) he is a resident of California, but doesn't seem to identify himself as Californian,

(2) and more important: I doubt the usefulness of a list of writers by place that takes everyone into who is located there, may s/he write fiction or science, may s/he live there his/her life long or only stay for a while, and, especially, may s/he write about California or not. In a category "California writers" I would expect writers writing about California (like Ursula K. Le Guin and Kim Stanley Robinson), not residents of California.

-- till we ☼☽ | Talk 10:15, 17 Oct 2004 (UTC)

In regards to #2 above, when it comes to occupational categories for places, it refers to people who hail from and/or identify with that place regardless of the actual profession. For example, the category "California scientists" would obviously not be just scientists who study California related topics (eg the ecosystems of California). It would be scientists who are from California. Likewise, the category "American writers" refers to writers who are from America, and no about writers who write about America.
Thus your suggested definition doesn't comply with the standard meanings of similar categories. "California writers" refers to anyone who is both a writer AND from California, either by virute of being born there or by living there a considerable portion of time.
Also, please note that place based categories aren't exclusive. For example, a writer who is born and raised in Alabama but who spends the remainder of his life in California could be placed under both Alabama writers AND California writers. There's nothing preventing people from appearing in multiple categories of that type. Dugwiki 20:40, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
P.S. I also should point out that Category:Calfornia writers is also a subcategory of Category:California people by occupation, which is further indication that it is writers who live(d) in California. Dugwiki 20:50, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

I agree with Dugwiki and completely disagree that the point of these pages should be to list writers who write about the state. Virtually every printed bibliography or anthology of writers with a geographic arrangement is based on the residency of the authors. See:

  • The Mississippi Writers Page (look at Appendix A)
  • James B Lloyd. Lives of Mississippi Authors, 1817-1967. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1981.
  • Thomas Daniel Young. Tennessee Writers. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1981.
  • Carol Smallwood. Michigan Authors. Hillsdale, MI: Hillsdale Educational Publishers, 1993.

With a few exceptions, these sources are all listing authors who lived in the state. I think, if anything, there should be separate Wikipedia articles for "Literature about California," "Literature about Texas," etc. If we base these states lists on literature about, then some states will have little to include. Or perhaps an author writes one book about California, but most of her other works are about outer space. Does that qualify her for inclusion more than an author who lived their whole life in California, but never wrote explicitly about it. I think some period of residency is the only logical way to organize these state lists. Steven.Harris (T | C) 02:21, 30 December 2006 (UTC) —


Of course, no list like this one can be complete, but the omissions that jump out at me on a first reading are Bret Harte (who resided in California while he wrote about it), John Muir and Robinson Jeffers (who spent their adult lives in California). 71.32.65.13 07:21, 10 February 2007 (UTC)