The Woes Of A Woman In Love — Barbarella....We've reached the end of the line. I hope your dreams turn out fine.Notes Give Pathos to Clouds — Laura McNeal.... I played Beethoven's sonatas until the …
May 5, 2026
Born Hawkins Mitchell in Southeast San Diego and sent to St. Augustine High School, he was a Wallace Stegner fellow at Stanford. He began writing feature stories for the Reader at the urging of Judith Moore in the mid-1990s. In the late '90s, Mitchell became Jangchup Phelgyal after converting to Buddhism.
Articles by Jangchup Phelgyal
Reader writers – music that shaped their lives
My Greatest Generation parents
The 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 …
July 2, 2025
San Diego blacks: what if I'd been white?
A whole different story if I'd been white Golden Age Garden Apartments (740 South 36th Street), built in 1983, has 76 apartments on its four floors. Requirements for obtaining an apartment here are that one …
January 20, 2024
Normal Heights on its way back
Nowhere Zone“I’d been renting an apartment over on Georgia Street, the sort of border area between North Park and Hillcrest. From one month to the next, they raised my rent by $200. I’m a teacher …
December 4, 2023
Tom Deméré takes us to Mission Valley of 50 million years ago
More or less sudden mountainsThe rocks in and around San Diego have composed amazing, fiery stories for a very long time. An ancient ocean once covered this county; volcanoes used to spew here; and more …
October 1, 2023
San Diego's rare fruit and vegetable growers
• Stephen Facciola's edible worldHe and Caplan started to swap names, to compare notes on big players in the exotic fruits and vegetables community. (“I’m sure you’re acquainted with Paul Thomas in …
September 2, 2023
Post-mortem on UCSD's Sherley Anne Williams
Sherley Williams – from Fresno to La Jolla Sherley and I were the same age, both of us writers, both of us descendants of slaves. In 1966 we became the first in our respective families …
January 1, 2023
My Arizona and Utah family, a daughter disabled since birth at Friendship House
A Fairy Godmother’s Art I can recall the way a certain blouse, puffy-sleeved and lace-collared, tugged at the pits of my arms the year I fell in love with Matt Denhalter. The same mistakes I …
October 30, 2021
Sole survivor of fishing accident, the bitch of being 5'5", tried Morningstar for my schizophrenia
Nightmare of the New Hope A little cry of relief burst from him, lost in the shriek of the wind. His hands scrambled, searching for the inflate cord. The sea bounced him. Spray lashed the …
October 2, 2021