Literary Nonfiction. Memoir. California Studies. DUNE CHILD will be of interest to historians (California history) and child therapists. It tells the story of an artistic and bohemian community that existed in the dunes near San Luis Obispo during the Depression. John Steinbeck came there to read from Tortilla Flat and Ella remembers following him to a hobo camp; Ansel Adams and Edward Weston came to shoot photos for a journal called Dune Forum, and Ella followed them on their photography expeditions. Ella's father, Dunham Thorp was Upton Sinclair's press secretary when Sinclair ran for governor of California, and Ella was on hand as well as the two men discussed strategy—she found Sinclair annoying, he felt similarly with respect to her.

Author City: BERKELEY, CA USA

Born in the Great Depression, author Ella Thorp Ellis grew up in a collective bohemian community on the California coast. Resident artists and writers, including her father and mother, were frequently visited by well-known figures including Upton Sinclair, John Steinbeck, Edward Weston, and Meher Baba. Former lecturer at San Francisco State University, Ella Thorp Ellis has been celebrated for her young adult novels, six of which were American Library Honor Books of the Year. Married, with three sons and nine grandchildren, she divides her time between Berkeley and Santa Cruz, California.