
Top Ten Tuesday is a meme hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl, featuring a different top 10 theme each week. This week’s topic is Authors (or books by authors) Who Live In My State. I’m including some authors who are no longer living, but who are certainly very much associated with my (adopted) home state of California!
Although I’m not a native, I’ve been living in California for almost all of my adult life — so it’s home! Here are a selection of books by authors who either live or lived in California. I love my literary neighbors!










Featured authors:
- Jasmine Guillory
- John Steinbeck
- Gail Carriger
- Armistead Maupin
- Daniel Handler
- Nina Lacour
- Isabel Allende
- Taylor Jenkins Reid
- Ray Bradbury
- Lisa See
It actually was a bit of a challenge to come up with my list this week — I had to do a bit of fact-checking to make sure that authors who I thought live/lived in California actually did! Did anyone else struggle with this week’s prompt?
If you wrote a TTT post, please share your link!

I went rogue because I didn’t have time to research! Thanks for representing California! I just read Abigail and Alexa Save the Wedding and she’s in CA (Pasadena). I need to start my Ca list so I’m ready next time!
Now I’m curious to see what your “rogue” topic is! And I’m always up for learning about more CA authors!
California seems like such a great place to live!
It is! Although, as someone who grew up in the Northeast, I do still miss having seasons!
Seeing Ray Bradbury’s name on your list made me smile. I love his writing. I also really like Guillory and Carriger. Great TTT list. 😀
Thanks! I had no idea Bradbury lived in California until I started trying to put together this list. I’ve loved the handful of short stories of his that I’ve read, and definitely want to read more!
He came from Illinois, but did live in CA for a long time.
That’s right! He spent many years in LA, so for my purposes, that works!
I’m not at all surprised that so many great authors live in California! My favorite from your list is Lisa See.
Happy TTT!
Susan
http://www.blogginboutbooks.com
She’s amazing! I’ve loved so many of her books (and still have a few backlist titles to catch up on)
Well, Ray Bradbury comes from Illinois (my home state), but yes, he did live in California for a long time, since he worked on movie scripts for Hollywood, including the film of Moby Dick!
I decided not to focus on states of origin (after all, I’m not from California originally either!), but to include anyone known for having spent a good portion of their writing life here… so Bradbury counts! I know for at least one other, he’s retired to another state, but his most famous works were all written while living in San Francisco — so again, good enough for my purposes!
I wish I’d done this list now, and oddly enough, I probably would have chosen 10 different California authors😁
Well, now I want to see your list of California authors!! I guess you can save the topic for another time 🙂
I also really struggled! I had to Google a lot of author websites to see who lives in England or not!
Definitely harder than I expected!