Gerald Haslam

Gerald William 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, Haslam 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.Most recently he (and wife Janice E. Haslam) have examined the life of another maverick, Senator S. I. Hayakawa (In Thought and Action: The Enigmatic Life of S. I. Hayakawa). Reviewer David Peck labeled him "the quintessential California writer." [1]Reviewer Julie Robertson wrote, “I don’t know what I love best about Gerald Haslam’s writing: the validation of his own turf, his marvelous sense of history and metaphor, or his zany and poignant characters.” Historian Kevin Starr observed, “for Haslam the Great Central Valley offers a profound and dynamic probe, an axis of approach, a metaphor, into the human condition itself.” Professor David Fine asserts, “He writes with tolerance about intolerance, with a sense of justice about injustice and with humor that doesn’t stoop to condescension.” The Long Beach Press-Telegram called him simply “the writers’ writer.”

Contents

Early life and education

Haslam was born in Bakersfield, the son of an oil worker. Growing up in nearby Oildale, he attended public schools, then Garces Memorial High School, before working as a farm field hand, a store clerk, and an oil field roustabout and roughneck. He served in the U.S. Army from 1958 through 1960. He attended Bakersfield (Junior) College, then ‘San Francisco State University’, where he earned a B.A in 1963 and an M.A. in 1965. He completed a Ph.D. from the Union Graduate School in 1980.[2] He also played college football, ran track, and boxed in the Golden Gloves. He is a member of the Bakersfield College Track/Cross-country Hall of Fame.

Career at Sonoma State University

Haslam taught at Sonoma State University (SSU) from 1967 to 1997 as a professor of English. He was a generalist, teaching everything from elementary linguistics to regional literature to writing. Now a professor emeritus at SSU—where he occasionally teaches for the Oscher Lifelong Learning program—he also now 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. During his time at Sonoma State and after, he published hundreds of articles and stories in both national and regional magazines. He was a columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle's Sunday magazine and a Contributing Writer for the Los Angeles Times' Sunday magazine, and a commentator for KQED-FM's "The California Report." His writing is widely anthologized. He is also the father of computer-game innovator Fred Haslam, illustrator Garth Haslam and editor-writer Alexandra Haslam Russell.

Literary Awards

Community Honors

Publications by Gerald Haslam

Fiction

Non-Fiction

Anthologies

Booklets and Monographs

Notes

  1. ^ International Who's Who of Authors and Writers 2004, Routledge, 2003, ISBN 9781857431797

External links