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This week, we reach into the City Arts & Lectures archives for a conversation with Joan Didion.

One of the most influential writers of our time, Didion both chronicled and shaped American culture with a sharp, witty, and distinctively Californian sensibility.\xa0 \xa0The Sacramento native graduated from the University of California at Berkeley. Her novels include \u201cPlay it as it Lays\u201d, \u201cA Book of Common Prayer\u201d, and \u201cThe Last Thing He Wanted\u201d.\xa0 With her husband John Gregory Dunne, she co-wrote screenplays including \u201cTrue Confessions\u201d, \u201cUp Close and Personal\u201d, and \u201cThe Panic in Needle Park\u201d.\xa0 Didion\u2019s nonfiction, beginning with the 1968 \u201cSlouching Towards Bethlehem\u201d, exemplifies the New Journalism movement \u2013 a subjective approach to reporting that employs literary techniques. Didion\u2019s inimitable voice was brought even more to the foreground in her memoirs \u201cThe Year of Magical Thinking\u201d, and \u201cBlue Nights\u201d, which describe the loss of her husband and daughter and her anxieties about parenting and aging.\xa0 Joan Didion died in Manhattan on December 23, 2021, at the age of 87.

Joan Didion appeared on City Arts & Lectures six times between 1996 and 2011.\xa0 In her last visit, recorded on November 15, 2011, she spoke with novelist Vendela Vida, shortly after the publication of \u201cBlue Nights\u201d at the Herbst Theater in San Francisco.\xa0 The program was a benefit for the 826 Valencia College Scholarship program.\xa0