Over a hundred and fifty people gathered at the Sunkist Activity Center of the California Citrus State Historic Park for the launch of the anthology edited by outgoing Inlandia Laureate Gayle Brandeis. Orangelandia: The Literature of Inland Citrus.

More than half of the anthology’s contributors read from the anthology which includes poetry, fiction, essays, drama, memoirs, and recipes.

Reading my own poems included in the anthology (“Wishing for a Ladder,” “Redlands’ Sunset,” and “The Navel Line”) and listening to the writings of others reminded me how much oranges are symbols of the golden dreams so many of us have formed in the fertile landscape of Southern California.

David Stone and Inlandia Laureate (2012-2014) Gayle Brandeis at the launch of the anthology she edited, Orangelandia: The Literature of Inland Citrus

David Stone and Anne Chaffee

Ben and Naoma Stone on their first visit to California in 1996