Department of Creative Writing

Faculty Publications

Faculty Publications

    • An American Martyr in Persia: The Epic Life and Tragic Death of Howard Baskerville (2021) 
    • God: A Human History (2017)
    • Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth (2013)
    • Muslims and Jews in America: Commonalities, Contentions, and Complexities (co-editor, 2011)
    • Tablet & Pen: Literary Landscapes from the Modern Middle East (editor, 2011)
    • How to Win a Cosmic War, published in paperback as Beyond Fundamentalism: Confronting Religious Extremism in a Globalized Age (2009)
    • No god but God: The Origins, Evolution, and Future of Islam (2005)
    • The Wendys (2019)
    • Please Bury Me in This (2017)
    • Small Porcelain Head (2013)
    • Self-Portrait with Crayon (2009)
    • My Nemesis (2023)
    • Miss Burma (2017)
    • The Good Men (2003)
    • A Moral Tale and Other Moral Tales (2017)
    • Prescription for a Superior Existence (2008)
    • The Loss of Leon Mead (2005)
    • American Stutter (2022)
    • Shadowbahn (2017)
    • These Dreams of You (2012)
    • Zeroville (2007)
    • Our Ecstatic Days (2005)
    • The Sea Came in at Midnight (1999)
    • American Nomad (1997)
    • Amnesiascope (1996)
    • Arc d'X (1993)
    • Leap Year (1989)
    • Tours of the Black Clock (1989)
    • Rubicon Beach (1986)
    • Days Between Stations (1985)
    • The Five Acts of Diego Léon (revised and expanded, 2020)
    • Cruising: An Intimate History of a Radical Pastime (2019)
    • The Five Acts of Diego Léon (2013)
    • Still Water Saints (2007)
    • If You Have to Go (2018)
    • Blood Lyrics (2014)
    • Colosseum (2008)
    • Storm (2007)
    • Deposition (2002)
    • Look at This Blue: An Assemblage Poem (2022)
    • Effigies III: An Anthology of New Indigenous Writing (editor, 2019)
    • Burn (2017)
    • Streaming (2014)
    • Effigies II: An Anthology of New Indigenous Writing (editor, 2014)
    • Rock, Ghost, Willow, Deer (2004, 2014)
    • Sing: Poetry of the Indigenous Americas (editor, 2011)
    • Effigies: An Anthology of New Indigenous Writing (editor, 2009)
    • Ahani: Indigenous American Poetry (editor, 2007)
    • Blood Run (2007)
    • Off-Season City Pipe (2005)
    • They Wanted Children (editor, 2003)
    • Coming to Life (editor, 2002)
    • Dog Road Woman (1997)
    • The Year of the Rat (1993, 1996)
    • It's Not Quiet Anymore (editor, 1993)
    • Voice of Thunder (editor, 1992)
    • This Time Tomorrow (2010)
    • Every Night is Ladies' Night (2004)
    • John Jennings: Conversations (2020)
    • Parable of the Sower: A Graphic Novel Adaptation (co-author, 2020)
    • I Am Alfonso Jones (co-author, 2017)
    • Black Comix Returns (co-author, 2016)
    • Blue Hand Mojo: Hard Times Road (2016)
    • Blue Hand Mojo: Dust to Dust (2015)
    • Kindred: A Graphic Novel Adaptation (co-author, 2015)
    • The Blacker the Ink: Constructions of Black Identity in Comics and Sequential Art (co-author, 2015)
    • Prison Industrial Complex for Beginners (co-author, 2015) 
    • The Dream Hotel (2025)
    • Conditional Citizens (2020)
    • The Other Americans  (2019)
    • The Moor's Account  (2014)
    • Secret Son (2009)
    • Hope and Other Dangerous Pursuits (2005)
    • Juniper Tree Burning (2001)
    • Frida Kahlo and My Left Leg (2021)
    • Sanctuary (2021)
    • The Still Point of the Turning World (2013)
    •  Poster Child (2006)
    • The Marriage Artist (2010)
    • The Color Midnight Made (2002)

Faculty Emeriti Publications

    • Naming the Lost: The Fresno Poets (editor, 2021)
    • One for the Money: The Sentence as a Poetic Form (2012)
    • Rolling the Bones: Poems (2009)
    • Modern History: Prose Poems 1987-2007 (2008)
    • Sleepwalk (2006)
    • And the Sea (2006)
    • Sky (2004)
    • Condition of the Spirit: The Life and Work of Larry Levis (co-editor, 2004)
    • Star Apocrypha (2001)
    • Greatest Hits (2001)
    • How Much Earth: The Fresno Poets (co-editor, 2001)
    • The Geography of Home (co-editor, 1999)
    • Cruising State: Growing Up in Southern California (1994)
    • Dark Matter (1993)
    • Blue Autumn (1990)
    • Set the Night on Fire: L.A. in the Sixties, co-authored by Jon Wiener (2020)
    • Old Gods, New Enigmas: Marx's Lost Theory (2018) 
    • Evil Paradises: Dreamworlds of Neoliberalism (co-editor, 2007)
    • In Praise of Barbarians: Essays against Empire (2007)
    • Buda's Wagon: A Brief History of the Car Bomb (2007)
    • No One Is Illegal: Fighting Racism and State Violence on the U.S.-Mexico Border, with Justin Akers Chacon (2006)
    • Planet of Slums: Urban Involution and the Informal Working Class (2006)
    • The Monster at Our Door: The Global Threat of Avian Flu (2005)
    • Cronache Dall’Impero (2005, Italian only)
    • Under the Perfect Sun: The San Diego Tourists Never See, with Jim Miller and Kelly Mayhew (2003)
    • Dead Cities, And Other Tales (2003)
    • The Grit Beneath the Glitter: Tales from the Real Las Vegas (co-editor, 2002)
    • Late Victorian Holocausts: El Niño Famines and the Making of the Third World (2001)
    • Magical Urbanism: Latinos Reinvent the U.S. Big City (2000)
    • Casino Zombies: True Stories From the Neon West (1999, German only)
    • Ecology of Fear: Los Angeles and the Imagination of Disaster (1998)
    • ¿Quién mató a Los Ángeles? (1994, Spanish only)
    • City of Quartz: Excavating the Future in Los Angeles (1990, 2006)
    • Prisoners of the American Dream (1986, 1999)
    • Beyond Blade Runner: Urban Control, The Ecology of Fear (1992)
    • Akriica (2022)
    • Kid to Kids Choir  (2022)
    • El Crossover [translation of Crossover by Kwame Alexander, 2021]
    • Every Day We Get More Illegal (2020)
    • Imagine / Imagina (2018)
    • Notes on the Assemblage (2017)
    • The Roots of a Thousand Embraces (2016)
    • Border-Crosser with a Lamborghini Dream (2015)
    • Portraits of Hispanic American Heroes (2014)
    • Senegal Taxi (2014)
    • Featherless / Desplumado (2013)
    • SkateFate (2011)
    • Half the World in Light (2008)
    • 187 Reasons Mexicanos Can't Cross The Border: Undocuments 1971-2007 (2007)
    • Downtown Boy (2005)
    • Cinnamon Girl: Letters Found Inside a Cereal Box (2005)
    • Coralito's Bay / La Bahia de Coralito (2004)
    • Super Cilantro Girl / La Superniña del Cilantro (2003)
    • Notebooks of a Chile Verde Smuggler (2002)
    • Grandma & Me at the Flea / Los Meros Meros Remateros (2002)
    • Giraffe on Fire (2001)
    • Thunderweavers (2000)
    • The Upside Down Boy/El Nino de Cabeza (2000)
    • CrashBoomLove: A Novel in Verse (1999)
    • Loteria Cards & Fortune Poems (1999)
    • Laughing Out Loud, I Fly / A Carcajadas Yo Vuelo (1998)
    • Mayan Drifter: Chicano Poet in the Lowlands of America (1997)
    • Love After the Riots (1996)
    • Calling the Doves / Canto a Las Palomas (1995)
    • Night Train to Tuxtla: New Stories and Poems (1994)
    • The Roots of a Thousand Embraces: Dialogues (1994)
    • Memoria(s) from an Exile's Notebook of the Future (1993)
    • Akrílica (1989)
    • Facegames (1987)
    • Exiles of Desire (1985)
    • Rebozos of Love (1974)
    • If Only There Were Stations of the Air (Sheila-Na-Gig Editions, 2024)
    • Oh Memory, You Unlocked Cabinet of Amazements! (Bamboo Dart Press, 2024)
    • Groaning and Singing  (2022)
    • Bird Flying through the Banquet (2017)
    • Shimmer  (2012)
    • Light Lowering in Diminished Sevenths  (2012)
    • King Lear and the Naked Truth (1998)
    • Shadow of Wings  (1991)
    • 1925: A Literary Encyclopedia (2024)
    • Archipelago (2024)
    • The Cloud of Unknowing (2023)
    • Portraits (2022)
    • The Kindness of Strangers (2021)
    • Aimlessness (2020)
    • Born Slippy: A Novel (2019)
    • Merton of the Movies (editor, 2019)
    • And the Monkey Learned Nothing: Dispatches from a Life of Travel (2017) 
    • Drinking Mare's Milk on the Roof of the World: Wandering the Globe from Azerbaijan to Zanzibar (2016)
    • Doing Nothing: A History of Loafers, Loungers, Slackers, and Bums in America (2007)
    • Cosmopolitan Vistas: American Regionalism and Literary Value (2004)
    • Crying: The Natural & Cultural History of Tears (1999)
    • These 'Colored' United States: African American Essays from the 1920s (editor, 1996)
    • American Nervousness, 1903: An Anecdotal History (1991)
    • American Identities (editor) (2008)
    • Voice Haunted Journey (1990)
    • The Art of Mariano Azuela (1981)
    • The Wilderness: New and Selected Poems (2018)
    • Questions My Daughters Asked Me, Answers I Never Gave Them (2014)
    • The Raindrop's Gospel (2010)
    • Cartographies (2008)
    • Weavers (2005)
    • Ghost Orchid (2004)
    • A Brief History of Punctuation (2001)
    • The Golden Labyrinth (1995)
    • Speaking in Tongues (1990)
    • Days of Awe (1989)
    • The Enchanted Room (1986)
    • Dangerous Business (2022)
    • The Strays of Paris (2021)
    • Charles Dickens (2021)
    • Perestroika in Paras (2020)
    • Taking the Reins (2020)
    • Saddles and Secrets (2019)
    • Riding Lessons (2018)
    • Twenty Yawns (2016)
    • Golden Age (2015)
    • Early Warning (2015)
    • Some Luck (2014)
    • Gee Whiz (2013)
    • Pie in the Sky (2012)
    • True Blue (2011)
    • A Good Horse (2010)
    • The Man Who Invented the Computer (2010)
    • Private Life (2010) The Georges and the Jewels (2009)
    • Ten Days in the Hills (2007)
    • Thirteen Ways of Looking at the Novel (2005)
    • A Year at the Races: Reflections on Horses, Humans, Love, Money, and Luck (2004)
    • Charles Dickens (2003)
    • Good Faith (2003)
    • Horse Heaven (2000)
    • The All-True Travels and Adventures of Lidie Newton (1998)
    • Moo (1995)
    • A Thousand Acres (1991) 
    • Ordinary Love & Good Will (1989)
    • The Greenlanders (1988)
    • Catskill Crafts (1988)
    • The Age of Grief (1987)
    • Duplicate Keys (1984)
    • At Paradise Gate (1981)
    • Barn Blind (1980)
    • Dumpster, for God's Sake (2019)
    • Alliecats (2019)
    • Falling and Other Stories (2018)
    • Magritte and Literature (2014)
    • Cat O'nine Tails (2012)
    • Hemingway and French Writers (2010)
    • Valley of Roses (2006)
    • Lacan and Literature (1996)
    • Alain Robbe=Grillet (1985)
    • Gide and Hemingway (1978)
    • Black Lazarus (1972)
    • Gide's Eagles (1969)
    • The Eye of the Needle (1967)
    • Mecca: A Novel (2022)
    • In the Country of Women (2019)
    • Between Heaven and Here (2012)
    • Take One Candle Light a Room (2010)
    • The Friskative Dog (2007)
    • A Million Nightingales (2006)
    • Highwire Moon (2001)
    • The Gettin' Place (1996)
    • Blacker Than a Thousand Midnights (1994)
    • I Been in Sorrow's Kitchen and Licked Out All the Pots (1993)
    • Aquaboogie: a novel in stories (1990)
    • Bring Everybody (2006)
    • Haywire Hearts and Slide Trombones (2000)