John Guerra

Henry Silva believes in the American Dream. And why shouldn’t he? He’s spent the better part of his career as a real estate developer in Los Angeles, forging himself into a poster child for its promise of plenty and opportunity. The youngest son of Mexican immigrants, he clawed his way to the top of his field by transforming decrepit properties into flashy shopping centers that evoke Americana. And he managed to do it all despite the twin specters of racism and poverty. Rumor has it that this paragon of the “right” kind of immigrant may even be gearing up for a mayoral campaign. That is, until a woman from his past shows up with plans of her own. Plans that threaten to unravel every facet of his carefully crafted life. Plans that just may offer Henry a chance at redemption.

Every day, the boy in the wheelchair sits on a ledge and dreams of flight, while his architect father frets about their future. That is, until the king of their small island nation makes the architect an offer: he will make the architect’s son comfortable and wealthy for the rest of his days. And in return, all the architect must do is complete one last job. The project? To create a structure that is bigger on the inside than out--a place so vast and complex that a person could wander its halls for a lifetime and never go the same way twice. But what could this impossible structure be for? And what will it mean if the architect is successful?

"Room by the Sea" is a story you know. It’s a story of parents, children, class, and coming-of-age. But it is also the story of something else. Something monstrous.

THE LAST, BEST SMALL TOWN tells the story of two neighboring families --one Latinx and one white--who live in the small southern California town of Fillmore. As the first decade of the 21st century unfolds, the children of these families come of age, fall in love, and suffer loss, as they continually hunt for their place in a world that can no longer promise them a better life than their parents.

Harry and Logan have not seen each other since they were teenagers. Now years later, a chance encounter on the street has spurred Harry--a reporter for the "LA Times"--to write a story about the friend he grew up with who now lives out of a tent behind a strip mall.

The Dry Years begins—as stories so often do—with an arrival. It begins the day a pair of lawyers showed up and started buying “useless land” for more than it was worth. By the time folks realized why, it was too late. The lawyers had stolen their water at the point of a pen and built an aqueduct to bleed them dry. Ten years later, this rural California community stands on the edge of collapse. That is until a stranger drives out of the desert, offering a solution to all their problems: Rain.

Inspired by the strange but true story of Charles Mallory Hatfield—Southern California’s most famous (and infamous) practitioner of the pseudoscience of rainmaking—this is a story about stories. The ones that are true, the ones that aren’t, and the ones that are somewhere in between.