Jim Hinch is one of our favorite practitioners of that deeply satisfying form, literary journalism. His beat is California, and his writing is thoroughly grounded in that region’s landscape, work, and eclectic mix of cultures—ancient and modern, glamorous and seedy, hedonistic and devout. Whether he’s writing about art and drug recovery in East Los Angeles, the migrant workers of the San Joaquin Valley, or evangelical Asian Americans in Orange County, he combines earnest curiosity with a willingness to risk ambition. A good journalist honors his subjects by doing the difficult and humble work of getting the simple facts right; a literary journalist is willing to labor to arrange that information into something beautiful, even profound, rewarding readers with a glimpse of a larger pattern. Hinch seems to write with a faith that journalism can be not only well crafted but philosophical, even theological—that by telling the truth, he can connect us with a larger Truth. In his pieces, we discover that common and un-poetic things have stories to tell, and that these stories can cast large shadows. Like Richard Rodriguez, Hinch seems to write to us from the America of the future—a time when the rest of the West, and maybe the nation, look as diverse as the Golden State already does, where old definitions of liberal and conservative don’t quite apply, where migrants from the eastern states can attempt reinvent themselves, leaving their cultural baggage behind, but also where increasingly large minority groups retain deep connections to cultures far older than the Mayflower. We have a lot to learn from this new world, and Hinch makes a generous guide.
Some of Hinch’s work is featured in Image issue 71, issue 73 and issue 82. Read an excerpt by Hinch here.
Biography
Jim Hinch is a writer in San Jose, California and a senior contributing editor for Guidepostsmagazine. He earned undergraduate and graduate degrees in English at Berkeley and Oxford before working as a reporter for the Orange County Register, and as an editor for Guideposts. He writes about California, religion and the arts. He’s happiest when those three subjects come together, as they do in both of his recent stories for Image, which are about a Los Angeles gang member turned artist and America’s oldest Spanish-language theatre troupe based in the migrant farm worker town of San Juan Bautista, California. His work has also appeared in DoubleTake, Gastronomica, Best American Food Writing and The Los Angeles Review of Books.
Current Projects
Jim recently finished a novel for children called The Astrolabe Conspiracy, which he has begun sending to literary agents (a dispiriting process). The book tells the story of a pair of twins named Christopher and Lucy Gosford, who discover a magical scientific instrument called the Great Astrolabe, which transports the twins into the ancient Aristotelian cosmos. The book is an adventure but it also explores deeper themes of love, betrayal and the moral vision at the heart of ancient astronomical theories. Jim is also writing an occasional series for the Orange County Register on how Orange County influences America and the world (seriously). Stories in the series feature Little Saigon, Orange County’s huge–and hugely influential–Vietnamese community; the creator of the world’s largest Harry Potter fan website; and the pioneering evangelism of Orange County’s Asian American Christians. He is gathering materials for a critical essay exploring why religious discourse in American popular culture is so contentious, and often so immature.