Life, Orange to Pear

John Brantingham is the first poet laureate of Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Park, the writer-in-residence at the dA Center for the Arts in Pomona, California, and a professor of English at Mt. San Antonio College. His work has appeared in hundreds of magazines including Writer's Almanac, The Journal, Tears in the Fence, and Confrontation. He has been nominated for ten Pushcart Prizes and won a spot in The Best Small Fictions 2016 and was a semifinalist in The Best Small Fictions 2018. He co-edited The L.A. Fiction Anthology (Red Hen Books). His poetry collections include East of Los Angeles (Anaphora Literary Press), The Green of Sunset (Moon Tide Press), and Dual Impressions: Poetic Conversations about Art (Silver Birch Press) with Jeffrey Graessley, and A Sublime and Tragic Dance (Cholla Needles Press) with Kendall Johnson. His collection of short fiction are Let Us All Pray Now to Our Own Strange Gods (World Parade Books). In the summers, he and his wife Annie teach free art and writing classes in Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Park. He is currently working on Kit Kid Dizzy: A Non-Linear Memoir of Magical Realist Mindfulness in the High Sierra that Is Often True and a series of poetry books about his time in the High Sierra.