This holiday season, buy local from local authors who have written a wide range of books that will appeal to any reader on your gift list! We will have novels, mysteries, cookbooks, children’s books, fantasy books, travel books, and more!
Mark your calendars for Friday 3 December 2021, 6pm!
Buy gift certificates (Custom price)
Beautifully packaged and arranged, these holiday themed gift certificate packages are the perfect gift for the reader in your life.
Local poetry gift packages (Only $30)
Have a poet in your life? Want to support local poets? The Old Capitol Books local poetry gift package is only $30 and features an assortment of local poetry and art publications. Cute, quirky, and unique! Pre-packaged and wrapped for your convenience.
John Bassett McCleary is the authority on a generation that questioned authority. He was born in San Francisco, California, and is a third-generation journalist. He attended Monterey Peninsula College, Santa Barbara City College, and UCLA. He has worked as a writer, art director, and photographer in the newspaper, music, publishing and advertising industries for the last thirty-seven years. John and his wife Joan live in Monterey, California. He continues to write and photograph, and plays bocce almost every week with many of his old hippie friends.
Joshua Converse is the author of The Diana Strain, Time in the Dark, Apophis Over Coffee, and Accidental Existential. He has been published in the Homestead Review, the Monterey Herald, the Monterey County Weekly, Literary Matters, Under the Fable, and elsewhere. He lives and works on the Monterey Peninsula with his family. He reminds his readers to beware the full moon.
Heather Flescher is a writer, poet, actor, spoken word performer and transgender activist. She grew up in Massachusetts and has lived on the central coast of California for the past twenty-three years. Her first book of poetry, “One Foot on the Ground”, came out in 2016. She has acted in numerous plays and performed her own writing hundreds of times. Her first play, “Daughters of Nothing”, was produced at the Paper Wing Theatre in Monterey in the spring of 2017. She is currently preparing her new poetry chapbook, a look at the intersections between trans issues and mental health. Heather lives with chronic fatigue and strives to make her society more accessible for everyone.
Dan Linehan is the author of the new, innovative multimedia serial novel The Princess of the Bottom of the World, which is integrated with its Multimedia Travelling Companion. The series chronicles travels to Antarctica and other remote regions to study complicated science issues that severely affect our planet Earth. His approach was greatly inspired by Carl Sagan’s Cosmos and the use of fiction, such as by John Steinbeck, to bring to light difficult environmental issues and make them more approachable for general audiences.
Nikki Lewen resides in the Santa Cruz Mountains where she lives among the redwood trees with her husband. Before settling in California, she crisscrossed the country, traveling and living full-time in an RV to explore the natural beauty of open spaces and surf the many beaches and breaks along the East, West, and Gulf Coasts of the USA. She is a Readers’ Favorite 5 Stars Award winning author, was featured at the National John Steinbeck Center, and is always on the lookout for the next adventure.
Melissa Sercia is an award winning Urban Fantasy and Paranormal Romance author with a passion for philosophy, mythology, and all things supernatural. She is the author of the Blood and Darkness series, Beautiful Dark Beasts series, and Immortal Billionaires series. Melissa lives in California with her man and her cat. When she’s not building dark fantasy worlds and slaying demons, you can find her in the kitchen cooking with a glass of wine in her hand.
Barbara Siebeneick was raised in the San Francisco Bay Area and moved back to the Monterey Peninsula in 2003 after living for many years in Germany and New Jersey. Barbara fell in love with the history, local legends, festivals and beauty of the area and the Central Coast has become as much a part of her novels as the mystery itself.
Wanda Straw grew up in Western Pennsylvania and has lived on the Monterey Bay of California’s Central Coast since 1987. She spent 19 years working at Sierra Mar Restaurant at the Post Ranch Inn in Big Sur, with nearly 16 years as its general manager. She is currently working on a book of short stories about the food and wine industry entitled, Julia Child Said My Name. She has lived in Carmel, California for fifteen years. Sasha Noodle String Theory is her first book.
Stuart Thornton is a guidebook author and travel writer based in Seaside, California. He has traveled extensively all over California while researching and writing his books including Moon California Road Trip, Moon Northern California Road Trips, Moon Coastal California, and Moon Monterey & Carmel. Visit www.stuartthornton.com for more information about his books and writings.
Jean Vengua is a Filipinx American visual artist and writer/poet, author of Prau (Meritage Press), The Aching Vicinities (chapbook, Otoliths Press), Corporeal (Black Radish Books, 2019), and Marcelina (Paloma Press, 2020). With Mark Young, Vengua co-edited The First Hay(na)ku Anthology and The Hay(na)ku Anthology Vol. II. In the mid-1990s, with Elizabeth H. Pisares, she formed Tulitos Press and published and edited the Debut: The Making of a Filipino American Film by Gene Cajayon and John Manal Castro, and The Flipside by Rod Pulido. Vengua lives in Monterey and manages programs for the nonprofit Asian Cultural Experience (ACE) in Salinas Chinatown. Her art can be found at https://www.jeanvengua.com and newsletter at jeanvengua.substack.com
Judy Zhu grew up in Beijing, China. After working at the US Embassy in Beijing for 6 years as a translator and interpreter, Judy came to Monterey, California, for graduate school. She received her 1st Master’s degree in Conference Interpretation, and her 2nd Master’s degree in Foreign Language Education. She currently works as a tenured Professor at the Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center (DLIFLC).
Old Capitol Books 