Oakland Literary Figures

A Rich Legacy of Writers

The city of Oakland has a rich legacy of writers who were either born there or who passed through. The most famous writer of all is, of course, Jack London, whose books continue to be taught in high schools throughout America. But there are many other pioneering writers who also made their start in Oakland: Gertrude Stein, Mary Ellen Bamford. Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Ambrose Pierce, Joaquin Miller and Robert Louis Stevenson. Oakland continues its legacy of literary richness with contemporary writers such as Ishmael Reed, Tennessee Reed and Maxine Hong Kingston. The Oakland Public Library holds monthly readings for budding new poets.

(Go to Oakland Writers — Present)

Oakland Writers - Past

Jack London (1876-1916)

Jack London was an explorer, wilderness adventurer and writer. His famous works include “Call of the Wild,” “White Fang,” and “Martin Eden.” Today, one can see the reproduction of London's log cabin at the plaza named after him, Jack London Square. His pioneering spirit lives on in the Bay Area.

Gertrude Stein (1874-1946)
Image from the Gertrude
Stein Memorial Webpage

She's the one who said the famous phrase: “There's no there there.” Born in Pennsylvania as the youngest of five children in a wealthy German-Jewish family, Gertrude Stein was a legendary figure and revolutionary writer. She dressed like a gypsy and owned a salon in Paris, where she would often invite other writers, artists and Americans to her salon for dinner. She was known as the “Mother of Modernism” because she broke many grammatical and emotional traditions of her time. She liked to play with sentences. One of her most famous lines is “A rose is a rose is a rose is a rose.”

Image from Gertrude Stein Online

Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894)

Born November 1850 in Edinburgh, Scotland, Stevenson was a romantic whose life sounds like a drama from start to finish. Although he had savings in a bank, he preferred to live like the poor. For a period of time, he lived in Tubbs Hotel to be near his lover, Fanny Osbourne, which was on 554 East 18th Street in Oakland. It was in Oakland that Stevenson recuperated from his illness and began to write again. It was also in Oakland that he and Osbourne got married. His works include “Prince Otto,” “Treasure Island” and “Underwoods,” a collection of poems.

Oakland Writers - Present

Ishmael Reed

Not only is he a professor at UC Berkeley, but a poet, critic and author of scores of books, essays and articles. Born in Chatanooga, Tennessee, Reed is the author of “Mumbo Jumbo,” “Flight to Canada,” “Japanese by Spring” and “Airing Dirty Laundry,” a collection of essays. Reed is also the recipient of awards from the National Institute of Arts and Letters (1975) and the American Civil Liberties Union (1978). He currently resides in Oakland.

Maxine Hong Kingston

Award-winning author of “The Woman Warrior: A Memoir of a Girlhood Among Ghosts,” “China Men” and “Tripmaster Monkey,” Maxine Hong Kingston made inroads to American literature when she integrated Cantonese words into her works. She used to teach English in Oakland high schools and now teaches creative writing at UC Berkeley. When her home burned down in the Oakland Hills Fire of 1991, she lost the manuscript to “The Fourth Book of Peace,” worth five years of work. She is now working on “The Fifth Book of Peace,” which she writes in community with a workshop for Vietnam Veterans. Kingston is also the recipient of the NEA Humanities award. She currently resides in Oakland.