Elaine Elinson

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Wherever There's a Fight from Heyday Books

Contact the author

City Lights Bookstore

Authors Guild

Selected Works

Books

Radiant as the Stars

As thousands of Jews flee the violence of Tsarist Russia for the promise of America, twenty-year-old Anna Reader makes a dangerous choice: she leaves Chicago and returns to the Ukrainian shtetl her family escaped six years earlier.

Set against the turbulent years before the Russian Revolution, this gripping historical novel is a story of courage, loyalty, and one young woman's fight for justice in a world on the brink of upheaval.

Advance praise for Radiant as the Stars:

"Radiant as the Stars is a deeply moving story of love and political awakening. With lyrical prose, richly drawn historical detail, and a compelling voice, Elaine Elinson brings to life the tensions between love and revolution, art and survival, and the enduring search for justice and belonging."
—Michelle Alexander, author of The New Jim Crow

"A book to gobble up and regret when it ends."
—Anne Whiteside, author of The Moon in Splinters

Wherever There's a Fight: How Runaway Slaves, Suffragists, Immigrants, Strikers, and Poets Shaped Civil Liberties in California

Gold Medal, California Book Awards 2010
Bronze Medal in History, Foreword Book Awards 2010

Tenth Anniversary edition published by Heyday, 2019

Development Debacle: The World Bank in the Philippines

Expose of how U.S. investment in the Philippines bolstered the oligarchy and oppressed the poor.

Magazine Articles

In the Library: Women's Voices in California History

Digging in the archives of the California Historical Society, the author found letters and diaries of women who fought for suffrage, abolition and against race discrimination -- whose vibrant voices had been silenced or marginalized in the dominant narrative.

An Election Observer in El Salvador Looks Back

On the eve of the 2020 U.S. presidential election, I am reminded of attempts to threaten voters and thwart democracy in the 1994 Salvadoran elections.

The Link Between Violence and Female Incarceration

The prevalence of physical abuse may be the most open secret behind the growing incarceration of women.

A Prayer for Peace, A History of War

A journey to Viet Nam with Veterans for Peace reveals the lasting legacies of war -- Agent Orange and unexploded ordnance. And a surprise -- the warm friendship between Vietnamese and U.S. veterans who had fought on opposite sides of the war.

Book Reviews

Selected Letters of Langston Hughes

I fell in love with this poet in a high school English class, and was thrilled that decades later I reviewed his work for my (new) hometown newspaper.

Newspaper Articles

San Francisco's Own Rosa Parks

Charlotte Brown defied a color bar on San Francisco street cars while the Civil War was still raging.

Events

Radiant as the Stars

Book launch at City Lights Bookstore -- September 28 at 7 PM, City Lights Bookstore, San Francisco

Book signing and conversation -- October 7, Mrs. Dalloway's Bookstore, Berkeley

Book signing and conversation -- October 25 at 3 PM, Jewish Community Library, San Francisco

Wherever There's a Fight: How Runaway Slaves, Suffragists, Immigrants, Strikers and Poets Shaped Civil Liberties in California

Elaine Elinson has given presentations with her coauthor Stan Yogi at Manzanar National Historic Site, Golden Gate National Park, and numerous bookstores, libraries, universities, and conferences around California.

In addition, Elinson has done readings and participated on panels at LitQuake, the Bay Area Book Festival, the AWP Conferences, and the Mechanic's Library.