A night of storytelling, community, and literary exploration in California’s capital city
On Saturday, May 3, 2025, I attended the final event of the Sacramento Noir book tour—an author panel hosted by Beers Books, one of Sacramento’s most beloved independent bookstores. From the moment the first author began reading, the evening shifted from a standard literary event into something more intimate and affirming. This wasn’t just about promoting a book—it was about celebrating a city, its histories, and the people who continue to shape its stories.
The panel was held in Sacramento, the capital city of California. Located in the northern part of the state, it’s often seen as quieter than coastal hubs like San Francisco or Los Angeles—but it’s anything but dull. Sacramento is a deeply diverse city, shaped by waves of migration, activism, and neighborhood resilience. While it doesn’t always get the national attention it deserves, it’s full of layered stories—and that’s exactly what Sacramento Noir sets out to reveal.
This panel marked the last stop in a two-month series of events celebrating the anthology.
View the full tour list here.
It also kicked off Sacramento Noir Summer—a Four Eye Books series where I’ll explore the real places featured in the book, dig into their historical and cultural context, and reflect on how fiction and geography shape one another.
Content Note: The stories discussed below include themes of trauma, displacement, and grief. While fictional, they reflect real challenges faced by many communities.
What Is Sacramento Noir?
Sacramento Noir is part of the internationally acclaimed Noir Series by Akashic Books, an independent publisher based in Brooklyn, New York. The series spans cities around the globe—from Paris and Havana to Tokyo, Johannesburg, and Melbourne—each edition featuring local authors who share stories about their city’s hidden corners, forgotten memories, and moral complexities.
The Sacramento edition, edited by literary critic and author John Freeman, brings together a range of voices rooted in the region. These are writers who live and work here—as professors, poets, journalists, and activists—and who know the city far beyond the headlines. Their stories explore themes of gentrification, generational trauma, spiritual survival, and the emotional tension of everyday life.
Even if you’ve never heard of Sacramento before, this collection reveals something universally human: how people carry grief, navigate transformation, and survive systems built to forget them.
Inside the Event at Beers Books
Located in Sacramento’s Midtown district, Beers Books is a cornerstone of the city’s literary scene. Established in 1936, it’s one of the oldest independent bookstores in California and has earned a devoted following among readers. Known for its thoughtfully curated collection of new and used books, its cozy atmosphere, and friendly, knowledgeable staff, Beers has long been a hub for the city’s creative and literary community.
Locals often describe Beers Books as a “reader’s bookstore”—a space where you can get lost for hours among the shelves or unexpectedly find yourself at a poetry reading or author panel. The store is deeply embedded in the cultural fabric of Sacramento, hosting events, supporting local writers, and welcoming readers from all walks of life.
📚 Visit their website or follow them on Instagram @beersbooks
For the panel, a few dozen chairs were arranged at the front of the store, nestled between tall bookshelves and glowing with warm overhead lights. There was no stage—just four chairs, no microphones, and a sense of casual connection. The layout and setting helped set the tone for the evening: intimate, open, and community-centered.
The featured panelists were:
- Maureen O’Leary (she/her) – novelist, educator, and advocate for youth storytelling
- Naomi J. Williams (she/her) – author of Landfalls, known for her lyrical, historically-informed fiction
- Janet Rodriguez (she/her) – poet and memoirist, writing across cultures, languages, and generations
- Luis J. Avalos (he/him) – fiction writer and journalist exploring masculinity, identity, and class
Each author read a short excerpt from their story. Janet’s was inspired by two real-life experiences—one involving a found bag with a key, the other a woman being forcibly evicted from her home. Naomi’s story reflected on the emotional weight of night shifts, labor, and aging. Luis brought a classic noir tone, rich with betrayal and mood, while Maureen’s piece offered a suspenseful take on codependent friendship and trust.
What stood out most was the warmth among the panelists. They were genuine fans of each other’s work. They nodded, laughed, and referenced one another’s stories during the conversation, creating an atmosphere of mutual respect that was both rare and refreshing.
Each author read a short excerpt from their story. Janet’s was inspired by two real-life experiences—one involving a found bag with a key, the other a woman being forcibly evicted from her home. Naomi’s story reflected on the emotional weight of night shifts, labor, and aging. Luis brought a classic noir tone, rich with betrayal and mood, while Maureen’s piece offered a suspenseful take on codependent friendship and trust.
What stood out most was the warmth among the panelists. They were genuine fans of each other’s work. They nodded, laughed, and referenced one another’s stories during the conversation, creating an atmosphere of mutual respect that was both rare and refreshing.
Highlights From the Q&A
The Q&A portion of the evening added both depth and levity, inviting the authors to reflect more personally on their work, their process, and their relationship to Sacramento. One particularly engaging moment came when the authors were asked what kind of movie they would make about the city.
Naomi envisioned a historical drama set in Sacramento’s once-vibrant Japantown, a neighborhood destroyed by post-WWII redevelopment. Janet reflected on the idea of home, sharing how living in Johannesburg helped her understand what it means to miss something before realizing you had it. Luis, leaning into noir sensibilities, described the moment “on the precipice”—where a character’s world might change completely—as the heart of his story.
Later, the authors were asked about their creative beginnings—lightheartedly framed as their “villain origin stories.” Luis recalled how he planned to pursue medicine, saying, “Medicine was going to get me to college, but English was going to keep me.” Naomi shared how she began by dictating stories into a recorder while raising young children. Janet spoke about her early love of rhythm, poetry, and flawed characters, shaped by Dubliners and Emily Dickinson.
The night ended with heartfelt book recommendations, including The Forest of Noise, The Parisian, Braiding Sweetgrass, Preparing for War, and What We Tried to Bury Grows Here—a mix of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry that reflected the panelists’ diverse literary tastes.
Reclaiming Sacramento Through Story
As someone who lives and works in Sacramento, I’ve often heard the city described as boring or unremarkable—especially when compared to larger cities. But nights like this remind me how much richness exists beneath the surface.
Sacramento is layered, complicated, and deeply alive. It holds multigenerational stories of migration, resilience, and cultural resistance. What Sacramento Noir does so well is show that the city isn’t just a backdrop—it’s a living presence. The stories don’t sanitize or glamorize the city. They listen to it. They linger in its alleys, recall its silences, and reflect its many lives.
A Four Eye Books Reflection
At Four Eye Books, I approach every book through four lenses: storyline, big ideas, time & place, and personal reflection. This event offered all four in abundance.
Each author brought their own way of seeing the city—some through memory, others through imagination. Their stories asked hard questions about belonging, justice, and silence. They invited us to sit with ambiguity. To resist forgetting. To listen closely.
For me, it reinforced something I’ve always believed: fiction can be both personal and political. And it can reveal a city in ways no guidebook ever could.
Sacramento Noir Summer Begins
This event marked the start of my Sacramento Noir Summer—a project where I’ll visit the locations featured in the book, photograph the settings, reflect on the stories connected to them, and map their real-world connections.
Over the next few months, I’ll be sharing updates from neighborhoods like Southside Park, Old Sacramento, Tahoe Park, and the former site of Japantown. I’ll also be highlighting author interviews, deep-dive reflections, and background research that expands on the book’s themes.
You don’t need to live in Sacramento to follow along. My hope is that you’ll think about your own city or hometown—what stories it holds, what histories are hidden, and how fiction might help bring them into view.
Have you ever read a story set in your city? What did it get right—or miss?
Explore the Authors
You can find Sacramento Noir at Beers Books or order directly from Akashic Books
Turn the page, take the trip—what new perspective awaits?
Photos courtesy of Kim Whitfield.
