My name is Aaron Gilbreath. I’m an essayist, journalist and burrito enthusiast. I’ve written essays and articles for Harper’s, The New York Times, Paris Review, The Dublin Review, Vice, The Morning News, Saveur, Tin House, The Believer, Kenyon Review, Slate, Virginia Quarterly Review, Narratively, The Threepenny Review, Southwest Review, Nowhere, and Brick. My essays have been listed as notables in Best American Sports Writing, Best American Travel Writing, and Best American Essays. My longform essay about Japanese whisky that was nominated for a 2019 James Beard Award.
My third book, The Heart of California: Exploring the San Joaquin Valley, published on November 1, 2020. (It mixes first-person narration, historical recreation, and reporting to weave the story of California oral historian Frank Latta’s forgotten 1938 boat trip from Bakersfield to San Francisco with my trip retracing Latta’s route by car during the 2014 drought.) My debut essay collection, Everything We Don’t Know, was a 2018 Oregon Book Award finalist. Outpost19 published my collection of jazz essays, This Is, in 2017.
Previously an editor at Longreads, I tell overlooked stories about musicians, authors, food, Japan, the American West and the natural world, and I like eating burritos.
You can find an excerpt from my Link Wray-themed novel, “Run Chicken Run,” at storySouth. You can contact me at prowlinggilamonster AT gmail DOT com
[…] — three great songs, a series of false trails… and then nothing. Music writer and essayist Aaron Gilbreath discovered the band’s music via a chance encounter with Mudhoney’s Steve Turner, and […]
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