James D. Houston

Born in San Francisco, James D. Houston has lived for many years in Santa Cruz. From this vantage point he has explored, both in fiction and nonfiction, the western U.S. and the Asia Pacific region. He has written eight novels, the most recent including Bird of Another Heaven and Snow Mountain Passage, the latter named one of the year s best books by the Los Angeles Times and the Washington Post. With his wife, Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston, he co-authored Farewell to Manzanar, a novel about the Japanese American internment. Among his numerous honors are a Wallace Stegner Fellowship at Stanford, Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio residency program, two American Book Awards, and the Humanitas Prize.