Davis is home of many published authors, most of whom at one time or another have appeared at The Avid Reader. The University is home to many, many published authors. Books recently published by UCD-affiliated authors are for sale at the UC Davis Bookstore next to the Comfy Chairs located to the right as you enter.

  • Linda Acredolo, professor emeritus in the psychology department (where she taught human development courses), wrote the book Baby Signs: How to Talk to Your Baby Before Your Baby Can Talk with co-author Susan Goodwyn.
  • Francisco X. Alarcon is an award-winning poet and educator. His acclaimed first book of poetry for children, Laughing Tomatoes and Other Spring Poems, received the National Parenting Publications Gold Medal Award and a Pura Belpre Honor Award from the American Library Association. Considered a leader in the Chicano literary movement, Alarcon was inspired to write poetry by the songs his grandmother used to sing. All of his book present the poems in both Spanish and English. He has recently published his first book of poems for adults, From the Other Side of Night/Del Otro Lado de La Noche: New and Selected Poems. Alarcon directs the Spanish for Native Speakers Program at the University of California, Davis.
  • Charles Bamforth is the Anheuser-Busch Endowed Professor of Malting and Brewing Sciences in the Department of Food Science and Technology. He is Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of the American Society of Brewing Chemists and a member of the editorial boards of Master Brewers Association of the Americas Technical Quarterly, the Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture, and the Journal of the Institute of Brewing. His most recent contribution to the field is Grape Vs. Grain, a cultural, societal, and economic comparison of beer and wine.
  • Derrick Bang the entertainment editor of The Davis Enterprise is also an expert on all things Charles Schulz and is the author of 50 years of happiness: A tribute to Charles Schulz
  • Peter S. Beagle is a fantasy author who wrote The Last Unicorn and A Fine and Private Place amongst other novels and short stories.
  • John Boe, a lecturer emeritus in the University Writing Program, is the author of Life Itself: Messiness Is Next to Goddessness and Other Essays. A joke collection, Your Joke is in the E-mail: Cyberlaffs from Mousepotatoes. He is also a professional storyteller/musician and has cds/tapes such as The Bongo Poet and Other Stories About Music: John Boe and the Steve Slagle Trio and Sex and Laughter.
  • David Breaux is a local who has dedicated his life to increasing public awareness of compassion. He spends countless hours on a Davis street corner greeting people and asking them to share their thoughts on what it means to be compassionate. He has published their definitions in a book entitled Compassion.
  • Elijah Brown was one of the first local authors to be published. He has mainly written fantasy fiction.
  • Max Byrd is the author of historical novels on U.S. presidents, (e.g., Jefferson, Jackson, and Grant.)
  • Robert Todd Carroll lives in Davis and teaches with the Philosophy department at Sacramento City College. He is the principal author of the website The Skeptic's Dictionary, the majority of which was also published in book form in 2003.
  • Joshua Clover writes for various magazines under his own name and pseudonyms while often teaching classes that involve poetry. He's the author of two books of poetry (Madonna anno domini, LSU 1997, and The Totality for Kids, California 2006), several poems published in the Best American Poetry collection, as well as a book titled The Matrix, which analyzes the film as an allegory for turn-of-the-millennium American life and labor
  • Michael Corbett and Judy Corbett, experts in the field, have written Designing Sustainable Communities: Learning from Village Homes.
  • Lucy Corin is a fiction writer with particular interest in innovative narrative. Her work has appeared in a journals including Ploughshares, The Southern Review, Gargoyle, and Fiction International and anthologies such as Algonquin's New Stories from the South: The Year's Best (1997 and 2003), The Iowa Anthology of Innovative Narrative, and Serpent's Tail's Strictly Casual: Women on Love. Her novel, Everyday Psychokillers: A History for Girls was published by FC2 in 2004. She is a professor of English at UC Davis.
  • SteveDaubert has written a book called Threads from the Web of Life & The Shark & the Jellyfish both are collections of scientifically accurate short stories in nature
  • Christopher M. Dewees, owner of Dewees Nature Designs. is the author of A Life Among Fishes: The Art of Gyotaku (2017) and The Printer's Catch: An Artist's Guide to Pacific Coast Edible Marine Animals (1985). Chris is a UC Davis Marine Fisheries Specialist Emeritus and is internationally acclaimed for his gyotaku fish print artwork.
  • David Dionisi is the author of American Hiroshima and a resident of Davis.
  • Mike Fitch is a local author and historian who has written Growing Pains: Thirty Years in the History of Davis, a book covering the town history for the thirty year period from 1968 to 1998.
  • Karen Joy Fowler
  • Michael Giardina's column for The Last Word was selected for national publication in Newsweek Current, a student-based Newsweek spin-off, in the summer of 2005. Newsweek Current's previous The Last Word columnist was Andy Borowitz, award winning humorist and co-creator of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. Michael graduated from U.C. Davis years ago, and now works for Google.
  • Michael P. Goodman, M.D. is the author of The Midlife Bible: A Woman's Survival Guide.
  • John O. Hayden, professor emeritus of English at UC Davis, has published several works, such as a study of the Aristotelian Tradition in literary criticism, as well as a collection of short critical reviews, written from the vantage of mimetic criticism, of eleven "great books" in Why the Great Books are Great, available at The Avid Reader.
  • Brad Henderson, a University Writing Program Lecturer, is the author of the novel Drums and of many poems in small presses. He is a 4th-generation Davisite.
  • Jack Hicks previously wrote for TV Guide and Rolling Stone magazine. He also edited a compilation anthology called California Literature, which he uses to teach his ENL 182 class.
  • Pam Houston is a novelist with a wry humor displayed in such titles as Waltzing the Cat and Cowboys are My Weakness.
  • David L. Johnson, Jr. released his Memoir, Lost & Found in December 2009 which is available the Avid Reader. The book details his life growing up in Davis as a black child in a poverty-stricken family.
  • Kevin Johnson is the Dean of King Hall and author of How Did You Get to Be Mexican and Opening the Floodgates: Why America Needs to Rethink its Borders and Immigration Laws.
  • KDVS Public Affairs Host and Davis Poet Laureate Andy Jones co-authored the poetry book Split Stock with UWP Lecturer Brad Henderson. Dr. Andy's most recent books of poetry include Where's Jukie? and In the Almond Orchard: Coming Home from War. He also irregularly publishes essays in The Davis Enterprise and the Sacramento Bee. Dr. Andy currently hosts the Poetry Night Reading Series on the first and third Thursday of the month at the John Natsoulas Gallery. To sign up for the mailing list, and for more information and a schedule of upcoming performers, see "http://www.poetryindavis.com."
  • John Kemper, Professor Emeritus of the College of Engineering at Davis, Engineers and Their Profession.
  • Mark Kreidler is an ESPN The Magazine columnist and appears on TV for ESPN2's First Take program. He's a former columnist for The Sacramento Bee. He's published two non-fiction books, both of which have been considered marketable successes. The first was entitled Four Days to Glory, and followed the lives of two high school wrestlers as they prepared for the Iowa State High School Wrestling Championship. Mark's second book, Six Good Innings, exposed life in the town of Toms River, N.J., home to one of the most successful Little League Baseball teams as it pins its hopes for glory on a new group of 12-year-olds. Mark's next book, involving the sport of surfing, is entitled Heavy Waves.
  • Bern Kreissman is a University Librarian emeritus of UC Davis who, since retirement in 1986, has self-published a number of successful works, including the highly-regarded California: An Environmental Atlas & Guide. His Davis-based self-publishing business is Bear Klaw Press.
  • Gus Lee
  • John Lescroart writes mystery/thrillers such as The Motive, The Second Chair, Dead Irish, etc. More than 15 of his books have appeared on the New York Times bestseller list.
  • Julia B. Levine, Ph.D. is a poet and local psychologist who has published three collections: Practicing for Heaven, Ask, and Ditch-Tender. With a delightful demeanor and tender heart, she displays her works with such care to make even the most poetry-illiterate to feel something.
  • John Lofland is a local author and historian who has written Davis: Radical Changes, Deep Constants (part of the Making of America series), a book covering the history of Davis.
  • Clarence Major is a UC Davis professor. His books include All-Night Visitors and One Flesh. He was awarded Notable Book of the Year Citation by The New York Times Book Review in 1990 for his book Painted Turtle: Woman With Guitar. He also edited Calling the Wind: Twentieth Century African-American Short Stories.
  • Belinda Martineau is the author of First Fruit: The Creation of the Flavr Savr Tomato and the Birth of Biotech Foods.
  • David Masiel writes fiction and teaches English 100F courses at UCD. Wrote 2182 Kilohertz.
  • Beth McMullen is a novelist and the author of "Original Sin."
  • Sandra Mcpherson is a UC Davis professor and poet. She wrote Patron Happiness and more recently A Visit to Civilization. She founded the Swan Scythe Press.
  • Chris Franchetti Michaels is a nonfiction author who has written several how-to books, including the craft bestseller Teach Yourself Visually Jewelry Making & Beading.
  • Laura Reese writes erotic thrillers. Her first novel Topping from Below was set in Davis and Panic Snap has some scenes around Davis. I am unsure if she currently lives in Davis, but she has lived here at different times of her life. Her novels do have an S&M element to them.
  • Eileen Rendahl has written chick lit, paranormal romance, and romantic suspense.
  • Kim Stanley Robinson is a science fiction author who writes somewhere between the "hard science fiction" and "speculative fiction" sub genres. His most famous series is the Red Mars, Green Mars and Blue Mars series about terraforming Mars. He occasionally is a speaker on campus, and seems to like Sudwerk. Other books include The Three Californias series, The Martians and Forty Signs of Rain.
  • Eleanor Roosevelt II, niece of the first lady, wrote a loving tribute to her aunt, With Love, Aunt Eleanor: Stories of My Life with the First Lady of the World.
  • Lisa Starr is an author of nonmajors biology books.
  • Sean Stewart is a critically acclaimed science fiction and fantasy author.
  • Alan Taylor is a writer and former professor of history at UCD. He won the 1996 Pulitzer Prize in History.
  • Louis Warren is a writer and professor of history at UCD. He won several prestigious awards for his book, Buffalo Bill's America.
  • Joe Wenderoth is a poet, novelist and essayist who lives in East Davis. Perceptive, uncanny, and pensive, Wenderoth was called "one of the ten best writers under 35" by Rolling Stone Magazine. For more, see his bio.
  • Bruce P. Winterhalder is chair of the anthropology department at UCD and author, co-author, and editor of several books on behavioral ecology and hunter-gatherer foraging strategies. These notably include Evolutionary Ecology and Human Behavior, Behavioral Ecology and the Transition to Agriculture, and Hunter-gatherer foraging strategies: Ethnographic and archeological analyses.

There are also many student writers in town.

Please see this page's discussion page for debate on this page's content.

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2006-03-02 20:46:39   Ok. I've come across somebody who I believe is a local author, but I'm not quire sure on his real name, I only know that people call him Butch. He's probably in his 50's and he tends to hang out at a lot of cafes in North Davis and a lot of students seem to know him. I overheard someone saying that he writes books that have stories about the people he meets. Does anybody know anything about this guy? —AbbyLawson

2006-11-28 17:10:36   You could be talking about Mr Bruce? —StevenDaubert

2006-11-29 16:53:09   What about Assc. professor Emily Albu? She's written a couple books and lives in Davis. —MyaBrn

2009-03-15 20:43:54   Ugh. Books should be italicized, not in quote marks. Somebody should fix this. —CovertProfessor

  • Are you trying to send me not-so-subliminal messages? -MaryLieth
    • Nope, unless you think you could do it relatively easily... unfortunately, a global find and replace wouldn't work. —CovertProfessor
  • Aren't books supposed to be underlined? Or is that a grade school lie? —ElleWeber
    • Underlining is acceptable, but it's a bit old-fashioned (though you will still see it on occasion). Underlining was what people did when italicizing was not readily available. —CovertProfessor
    • When I write up press release info for author signings, I have always italicized. —SunjeetBaadkar
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