PhotosThe Reader has started this series of its best stories from the past 52 years — 2600 cover stories and some remarkable interior features — to help make up for the loss of its physical …
November 10, 2025
Elizabeth Salaam grew up in the suburban foothills of Boise, Idaho and subsequently followed a winding path to Olympia, Washington; Brooklyn, New York; and Gotsu (a tiny coastal town in Japan), before landing in San Diego in 2007. She published her first cover story for the Reader in January 2010. As of November 2014, she has published 45 cover stories, 17 profiles featuring random locals, and a few handfuls of City Lights stories. From 2010 to summer 2014, she also published a biweekly Q&A for Reader Jobs.
Her website is elizabethsalaam.com.
Articles by Elizabeth Salaam
Balboa Park has more than these ten trees
Not so innocent off trail in Cuyamaca
Citizen pot bustI thought about the spring day my two hiking buddies and I were off-trail, crashing through dense thickets of tangled brush. It was growing dark, and the three of us had gotten separated. …
October 29, 2023
Kicked out of the U.S., kidneapped in TJ
I live in Tijuana, SmugglersvilleI was hobbling back from the store with a liter of milk, when I saw three young men sitting on the steps in front of a house in my Tijuana neighborhood. …
October 28, 2023
South Bay gated community may not be safest place to avoid danger
The Chula Vista kidnapping of Eddy Tostado by Arellano cartelAt 3:39 a.m. on January 7, 2007, Columbia Street was almost deserted. Little Italy had been plagued with car burglaries — “It got where you couldn’t …
October 22, 2023
Guitarist Rob Logic transforms the neighborhood
Spring Valley is the new North Park About three months ago, the bar donned a large sign reading “The Bancroft” next to Fannie’s old marquee, which now entreats — perhaps tongue-in-cheek — “I assure you …
February 6, 2023
Eastlake – square footage over location
What am I doing in Eastlake? The western end of the loop consists of a series of shopping centers, all butted up against Eastlake Parkway, and all bearing names that declare their neighborhood allegiance: Eastlake …
January 9, 2023
How San Diego moms cope with Zoom
The squad descends at 8:30 on a Wednesday morning in late September. One at a time, the girls arrive, jumping out of their parents’ cars almost before they’ve come to a complete stop outside our …
April 7, 2021
San Diego Reader writers alone at Christmas
Christmas JerkI managed to avoid being homeless on Christmas Eve 1979, but just barely. Unemployed since that summer, I found a cheap flophouse on 12th and Island where 70 bucks a month got me a …
December 23, 2020
Race blending at San Diego beaches, who does best Afro hair, Mitchell family
It's Not a Race Thing... It's Style Jordan, 18, is black, and I saw him sporting swim trunks and sunglasses and hanging out on the beach with his white friend Alex, also 18. "There's pressure …
November 21, 2020