D. J. Waldie is a cultural historian, memoirist, and translator. He has published seven non-fiction books, each dealing with aspects of everyday life. His most recent publications are “It can go any way it wants, and I’ll still be here. Ruscha, LA, and a Sense of Place in the West,” included in the exhibition catalog for “Ed Ruscha and the Great American West” (De Young Museum, San Francisco published by the University of California Press, 2016); “Suburban Holy Land,” a chapter in Infinite Suburbia, (Princeton Architectural Press, 2017); and “A River Still Runs Through It,” a cultural and social history of the Los Angeles River accompanying L.A. River, a photographic exploration of the 21st century river (George F. Thompson Publishing, 2019). Forthcoming is Becoming Los Angeles, a compilation of his recent writing on the city. In 1998, he received a Whiting Writers Award from the Mrs. Giles Whiting Foundation of New York. In 2006, Waldie was named by Los Angeles magazine as one of the “100 influentials” of Los Angeles. In 2017, he was awarded the William R. and June Dale Prize for Urban and Regional Planning (administered by California State Polytechnic University, Pomona). In presenting the award, the Dale Prize committee noted that, “in books, essays, presentations, and commentary on urban issues, Waldie has sought to frame the suburban experience as a search for a sense of place…. Waldie’s work ranges widely over the history of suburbanization and its cultural effects.”