"The Literature of California, Volume I," a new, annotated collection of California writing from Native American beginnings through 1945, has just been published by the University of California Press. Edited by UC Davis English faculty member Jack Hicks, and prominent state writers James D. Houston, Maxine Hong Kingston and Al Young, the 633-page anthology was coordinated from UC Davis. "We wanted to make a sophisticated, fully inclusive 21st century gathering of the treasures of California literature on the state's sesquicentennial," lead editor Hicks notes, "for both the lay public and students and scholars -- from the Indian trickster Coyote down to Steinbeck's Joad family in The Grapes of Wrath." Volume II (from World War II to the present) is scheduled for publication in 2003. In compiling the anthology, the editors used 10 major libraries and employed numerous UC Davis undergraduates and graduate students.