A year after the fires, 5 Altadena writers reflect on loss and the creativity that survives

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For the galore writers surviving successful Altadena erstwhile the Eaton occurrence erupted past January, the flames took their houses, their places of refuge and inspiration, their assemblage gathering centers and their archives. Homes of existent writers and of fictional characters perished. The spot wherever writer Naomi Hirahara grew up connected McNally Avenue, wherever her amateur sleuth Mas Arai besides lived, is gone. Michelle Huneven’s quality successful her caller “Blame” would’ve mislaid her location connected Concha, but the Samuelson household successful her latest novel, “Bug Hollow,” lived successful a location acold westbound capable successful Altadena to remain. Huneven’s 2 houses burned down, on with the location of her next-door neighbour and adjacent friend, the Altadena historiographer Michele Zack. The neighborhoods wherever Octavia E. Butler lived, arsenic good arsenic her characters Dana and Kevin from her caller “Kindred,” were profoundly affected. Out of 5 members of Alta Writers, a radical of women who gathered each period astatine writer Désirée Zamorano’s location connected Mount Curve for a potluck and a penning prompt, lone Zamorano’s location is inactive standing.

The twelvemonth 2025 present holds 2 important points successful time: beingness earlier the fire, and aft it. A twelvemonth aft the devastation, astir are inactive displaced. Some person recovered a groove again, penning successful their impermanent homes, portion others person yet to instrumentality to their practice, consumed by the logistics of nonaccomplishment and relocation and retired of measurement with their routines.

We talked with a fistful of section writers astir what they loved astir Altadena, what they miss, and however their penning has been affected by this profound lawsuit and beingness successful its wake.

Bonnie S. Kaplan

For 9 years earlier the fire, writer and pedagogue Bonnie S. Kaplan had lived successful a rented courtyard bungalow connected Maiden Lane, walking region from Eliot Middle School, wherever she taught poesy done Red Hen Press. Kaplan, who has a inheritance successful show creation and comedy, was successful the process of digitizing her video enactment from postgraduate schoolhouse but didn’t decorativeness successful time. Now it’s each mislaid to clip on with everything, including the remainder of her enactment — photographs, writings and the journals of her partner, Sylvia Sukop, who was storing them successful Kaplan’s garage. Kaplan mislaid cherished idiosyncratic collections, immoderate of which she’s been curating since childhood: 45s from the ’60s successful mint information that she started collecting adjacent the Ashby BART successful Berkeley successful the ’80s, invaluable comic books that she had bought disconnected the rack arsenic a kid and vintage skateboards.

For 48 years, Kaplan rode a fiberglass skateboard. “Nothing similar you spot today,” she says. “For sidewalk surfing — it’s astir similar creation for me. Altadena, wherever I lived, eastbound of Lake, had the astir buttery streets for skateboarding. I miss that. I miss the trees and the past there.”

On Jan. 23, she posted connected a Facebook radical for collectors of 1970s skateboards to spot if anyone could link her to a mid-’70s Bahne with Road Rider wheels and Bennett trucks.

The Facebook radical ended up buying her the aforesaid committee she’d lost. “They truthful came done for me,” she says done tears. “These were strangers.”

Years ago, Kaplan and Sukop lived connected Ganesha Avenue successful eastbound Altadena, wherever Kaplan lovingly tended a plot of amusement roses that had been planted by the erstwhile tenant, a signaling caput for the section rosarian society. The Eaton occurrence got arsenic acold arsenic the store of the location connected Ganesha, but the roses, surrounded by asphalt, survived. Recently the existent tenants called Kaplan to fto her cognize that the owners program to teardrop retired the roseate plot to marque country for their caller garage.

Days aft the fire, Kaplan started penning a stand-up routine. Nearly a twelvemonth later, she inactive continues it erstwhile it comes to her. “It’s exclusively astir the occurrence and nonaccomplishment and resilience,” she says implicit java astatine Cindy’s java store successful Eagle Rock. One of the diner windows is painted successful memoriam to its sibling restaurant, Fox’s, connected North Lake Avenue, with a ample reddish bosom and the words “Altadena In Our Hearts Forever, Fox’s 1955–2025.” “The drama is unexpected and precise me. It’s however I survive. Humor has ever been a endurance mechanics for Jewish radical but besides me. This I wrote close away.”

Things I’m gladsome were destroyed erstwhile the Eaton Fire burned everything I own

Thirty pounds of soiled laundry
old emotion letters insisting that I americium excessively much
tax returns I didn’t request to save
the instrumentality of adaptors, chargers, and cords
for thing I presently owned
materials from conferences I slept through
unused hairsbreadth gel, mousse, and glitter nail polish
my precocious mother’s dentures
a cracked model my landlord ne'er fixed
long-expired kibble my cats refused to eat
an uncanceled Hitler postage stamp
from my Jewish grandfather’s stamp album.

–Bonnie S. Kaplan

Michelle Huneven

Altadena-born novelist Michelle Huneven and her husband, Jim Potter, mislaid the 2 homes they owned to the Eaton fire, conscionable a fewer months earlier Huneven’s latest novel, “Bug Hollow,” astir a household successful Altadena, was released. They’ve settled temporarily successful Echo Park portion successful the process of rebuilding their homes. “There’s conscionable truthful overmuch to do,” says Huneven implicit beverage connected Lincoln Avenue aft a hike successful the Arroyo Seco with her person and neighbor, the Altadena historiographer and writer of “Altadena: Between Wilderness and City,” Michele Zack.

Zack and Huneven met connected the archetypal time of ninth people astatine John Muir High School and person been neighbors successful westbound Altadena for the past 24 years, wherever they had hiking, walking and beverage rituals together. “One of the things I miss astir is Michele has this astonishment laughter that I could perceive from my house,” says Huneven.

Along with the location bureau wherever she wrote 4 books, Huneven mislaid each of her journals, her room and aged computers with files and photos that weren’t anyplace else. After the fire, she stopped penning due to the fact that she had truthful overmuch connected her plate. “I was getting truly depressed and was having PTSD wherever I’d retrieve a brace of shoes, burned up! Remembered a pan, burned up! And each clip I’d conscionable flash connected the occurrence and it was conscionable truly getting atrocious and I was truly depressed. And past I broke my foot. And the 2nd I broke my foot, I cheered up. Sometimes you get a daze and it changes you, but besides I had clip to constitute due to the fact that I couldn’t bash anything. I couldn’t move, truthful I wrote a mates of abbreviated stories, started a caller novel, and I cheered close up.”

Back astatine her property, the gait betwixt her 2 houses is mostly intact, including a Hachiya persimmon tree, which successful December was dense with fruit, comforting lanterns successful the charred landscape, signaling season. “With everything erased we person a presumption of the mountains that we ne'er had,” she says. “And there’s tons of coyote scat — they’re conscionable marauding around. The lizards are backmost and immoderate of my roses survived.”

Sakae Manning

Storyteller Sakae Manning was acquainted with Altadena earlier she and her hubby moved determination 35 years agone — his household had past successful westbound Altadena and his maternal grandma had lived determination for a while. They bought their location connected West Terrace Street, which was expected to beryllium a starter home, raised their children there, and ne'er left. “I conscionable instantly fell successful emotion with my assemblage and my neighborhood,” she says. “The information that we lived close astatine the basal of the San Gabriel Mountains — for a writer, for a originative person, it was magical to beryllium capable to look astatine the mountains each day. My archetypal abbreviated communicative was acceptable successful Altadena and based connected the Santa Ana winds and a pistillate and a alteration successful her life.”

Manning’s location had a autochthonal plot — she wanted her gait to bespeak what was successful the mountains conscionable beyond her location — and she believes that those plants helped grip the fire. “The plants successful my gait burned but they didn’t drawback my location connected fire. Palm fronds caught connected occurrence and exploded and caught houses connected fire. There’s a bush we person that held the partition of my son’s country successful place. The unrecorded oaks saved people’s homes and acted similar a canopy of occurrence retardant. They are autochthonal to this onshore and person a purpose.” The nighttime of the Eaton fire, Manning was drying ceremonial sage connected her porch. “My gramps was Choctaw and helium ever taught america to unrecorded with nature. If we’d larn to perceive and look and consciousness alternatively of trying to control, much of our houses would inactive beryllium here.”

Manning’s vicinity was devastated by the fire. Half a artifact from her house, Anthony Mitchell Sr. and his lad Justin died waiting for archetypal responders to assistance them evacuate. “There’s a batch of radical successful my country — you tin spell artifact by artifact — who died,” she says.

Manning is Nisei and Choctaw and her husband, Antonio, is African American, and she recovered Altadena to bespeak the assemblage she wanted to beryllium a portion of. “We’ve had multiracial relationships successful our household for eons,” she says. “I wanted to unrecorded successful a assemblage wherever my kids would turn up and spot radical who looked similar them. Our assemblage was composed of radical who did everything from being a handyperson to a teacher oregon an artist. I unrecorded crossed the thoroughfare from my ain plumber and helium grew up connected this thoroughfare with my kids. My neighbour is an technologist and I tin speech to him astir astronomy and helium helps maine with knowing the sky. The pistillate who chopped my hairsbreadth lived crossed the thoroughfare and she’d sometimes chopped my hairsbreadth successful her house.”

Manning made relationships with different writers done Women Who Submit, a assemblage of women and nonbinary writers, and is portion of Alta Writers, a radical of women who gathered monthly to constitute and socialize astatine the location of novelist Désirée Zamorano. Manning loved penning connected her structure successful Altadena oregon astatine adjacent Cafe de Leche.

She says 1 of her favourite things astir Altadena was the privateness it provided. “When we moved there, to everyone who said, wherever is that?, I said, it’s a spot you’re going, it’s the destination. You’re not passing through. People cognize however to springiness each different privateness but inactive beryllium community.”

“You mightiness question to idiosyncratic from their porch, but I didn’t needfully spell up and speech to them, due to the fact that radical bash privation their privateness and we respect that. But we besides assistance each other. When idiosyncratic dies, radical bring food. We didn’t person each other’s telephone numbers due to the fact that we would conscionable locomotion extracurricular and speech to them.”

Manning has lone precocious started to constitute again since losing her home. She has a wide position of what she’s going to constitute about, which isn’t needfully astir the fire, she says, but however she views beingness differently. “I tin constitute due to the fact that I consciousness much settled present and tin spot the mountains.”

Ashton Cynthia Clarke

Writer and storyteller Ashton Cynthia Clarke remembers the archetypal clip she visited Altadena.

“My ex-husband and I had visited a person of his, who happened to unrecorded successful Altadena, and I had ne'er heard of the assemblage earlier that, but we were lasting successful the thoroughfare astatine the apical of Lake Avenue, and from there, we could spot down into the city. I curse we could spot each the mode implicit to the beach. And I asked my husband, ‘Where are we?’ And helium said, ‘Altadena.’”

Writer Ashton Cynthia Clarke, who formerly lived successful westbound Altadena

A fewer years later, successful 1999, they bought a location there. “It was an incredibly beauteous environment,” she recalls. “I could spot the mountains clearly, lasting successful the mediate of the street, from my room windows, from my backyard.”

Clarke is presently surviving successful Bunker Hill and says she misses hiking the most. A New York City native, Clarke had nary acquisition hiking earlier moving to westbound Altadena, wherever she could locomotion to the Gabrielino Trail. “It was a beauteous hike. It passed done a campground, it passed done small streams. And I retrieve seeing Black kids and brownish kids hiking and camping and I realized those weren’t exclusively achromatic activities. It conscionable truly struck me. I utilized that illustration successful a storytell that I did later, erstwhile I talked astir coming from New York and ne'er having camped before. I remembered a punctuation from Mae Jemison, who was our archetypal Black pistillate astronaut, and she was besides a physician, and she had spoken erstwhile astir the situation and however it was a Black contented arsenic good and however galore children she had seen that had asthma and related issues. And seeing those kids retired there, much oregon little successful the chaotic and enjoying the environment, truly spoke to me.”

Désirée Zamorano

Writer and pedagogue Désirée Zamorano recalls the strength of the clip surrounding the Eaton occurrence past year, bookended by governmental stress, which hasn’t ceased. Her 2nd novel, “Dispossessed,” based connected the Mexican repatriation programme of the 1930s, was published a fewer months earlier the occurrence and the ramping up of wide deportations of immigrants from the United States.

“It was a triple whammy, you know, the election, the occurrence and past the inauguration. And adjacent during the election, erstwhile the predetermination was called, it’s like, OK, I’m going to bask beingness each day. And past the occurrence happens and it’s like, beatified s—, I americium going to bask beingness each day.”

The location Zamorano and her hubby purchased successful 1998 is 1 of the fewer inactive lasting connected her thoroughfare a artifact distant from Farnsworth Park. After the fires they landed successful a semipermanent rental successful Long Beach to beryllium person to her teaching occupation astatine Cal State Long Beach.

“I miss Altadena. It’s a precise hard happening to balance,” she says. “I consciousness similar I should beryllium grateful due to the fact that my location is lasting and I person a harmless place. When you unrecorded determination for 26 years and you leave, not by choice, it’s precise hard. For years my hubby would say, ‘We request to downsize; and I would say, ‘You’re gonna person to resistance maine kicking and screaming retired of this house.’ Well, that’s what happened.”

Zamorano was enmeshed successful the assemblage of Altadena, some arsenic an pedagogue and arsenic a writer. When she and her hubby moved there, she was teaching astatine Jefferson Elementary. She was portion of a writer’s radical that met astatine the Coffee Gallery connected Lake Avenue, a beloved java store with a performance venue behind, wherever she had galore friends.

“My large takeaway from the occurrence was radical are amended than you deliberation they are. Really and truly. Of my writer’s radical successful Altadena, 4 of the five, their homes are gone … and the enactment everyone received was conscionable beautiful, and I retrieve going up 3 weeks aft the fire… I drove down Lake and this pistillate is holding up a motion saying Free Food World’s Food Kitchen and I’m like, ohio my God, look astatine her, she’s conscionable holding up that motion for each of us.”

Zamorano’s penning radical inactive meets informally. “That’s the different happening with this fire,” she says. “It’s a diaspora, you know, radical person flung to antithetic parts. I’m successful Long Beach. My friends are successful Studio City oregon Burbank oregon Downey. That is not Altadena.”

Wrightson is simply a writer, exertion and oral historiographer who has spent the bulk of her beingness surviving connected the Altadena border.

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