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See the Inlandia Map
Take a tour of the Inland Empire as seen through the lens of the Inlandia Anthology. Our interactive map will allow you to see the locations mentioned in the Anthology stories.
“The new voices in lnlandia represent the best of my hopes and dreams and literary desires, the eloquent renderings of how the old worlds and new have collided and melded in this place like no other.” —Susan Straight, from the Introduction
Coyotes howling at the moon, gang warfare, neighborhoods of tract homes for an exploding population. miles of orange groves now abandoned, the prattle of military training guns jarring the desert quiet. a landscape rich with the stories of Native American tribes.
These disparate images are inspired by one of the fastest growing regions in America, California’s Riverside and San Bernardino Counties, the so-called Inland Empire. A land of juxtapositions in geography, ethnic diversity, and wealth, compounded by the dramas of opportunity and loss in a burgeoning region, the Inland Empire is becoming much more than “the area east of Los Angeles.” With a culture and landscape of its own, it is a breeding ground for passionate literature.
“A literary anthology with all the twists and turns of a sticky, can’t-put-it-down novel.” —Dan Bernstein, columnist, Riverside Press-Enterprise
Susan Straight, professor of creative writing at the University of California, Riverside, has won the Gold Medal for Fiction from the San Francisco-based Commonwealth Club for her fifth novel, “Highwire Moon.” All her novels are set in the fictitious town of Rio Seco, a loose parallel to her hometown of Riverside, where she still lives.