Reader's Steve Sorensen publishes new book, A Branch of the Sky

Editor: Steve Sorensen, who wrote for the Reader from 1976 off and on through 1997, has come out with a new book, A Branch of the Sky: Fifty Years of Adventure, Tragedy, and Restoration in the Sierra Nevada.

Sorensen's previous books include:

• Heap of Bones: A Baja Surfer's Chronicle
• Morning Glass: the Adventures of Legendary Waterman Mike Doyle
• Day Hiking Sequoia: Fifty day hikes for Sequoia National Park
• Day Hiking Kings Canyon.

We asked Sorensen to explain how he happened to write for the Reader and which were his favorite stories he wrote for the Reader.

Sorensen:

In 1975 I was on my way back from a surfing trip to Mexico, when I stopped in Encinitas to visit a friend and ended up sleeping on his couch for two weeks. During that time, I saw a copy of the San Diego Reader and, inspired by its irreverent style, decided to try writing my very first feature story about what it felt like to be unemployed. I submitted the story to the Reader, then forgot about it. On the day before I had to leave town, I happened to walk by a newsstand on the Coast Highway and saw that the latest edition of the Reader was out. I picked up a copy and, to my astonishment, saw that the story on the cover was mine. I quickly got on the phone with the Reader’s young editor, Paul Krueger, who offered to pay me $300 for the story and asked if I could write more like it.

My favorite Reader stories that I wrote, in no particular order, are:

• The Devil’s Peak: Climbing the highest mountain in Baja
• Mission Over the Mountains: Chocolate Mountains aerial gunnery range
• The King of Moonlight Beach: And the other outcasts of Encinitas
• The Guns of San Diego: Harrowing tales of police confiscating weapons
• Pilgrims by the Shore: Easter at the Colorado River
• Don’t Pitch Your Tent on San Clemente Island: It belongs to the Navy
• Bull O’ the Woods: Harvesting eucalyptus trees in Leucadia
• Hot Place in the Sun: Slab City and its neighborhoods
• Blood Brothers: Twelfth Avenue plasma center
• Fat Chance: Rancho La Puerta in Tecate
• Pecking Order: Fighting Cocks in San Diego County
• Please Don’t Tell Anyone that Old Surfers End Up Here: Zacatitos, Baja California Sur

Editor: See all Sorensen stories.