The newly re-designed CaliforniaAuthors.com is up and running. I always say — in terms of design and building — there are no small websites, but this one really doesn’t qualify as small; in fact, it’s big, with its 70+ author essays and excerpts, its many pages of directory-style resources, and its more than 1800 posts going back to 2002. It was a hell of a lot of work: Donna made the content fresh, Val made it all go, I designed it and did the thousand things to make the crufty old site fit into its shiny new suit. It’s nice to see it out there. It is especially nice to see it done.

We’re celebrating the re-launch with another cool book giveaway: Harry, Revised, the brand new novel by top LA litblogger, Mark Sarvas. Learn more about the book here. Then go over to californiaauthors and enter the drawing by sending us your e-mail address via the contact form, with the words Harry, Revised in the subject line. Enjoy! [Check out Mark’s great blog, The Elegant Variation, here.]

In other California book news, the official pub date for Donna’s book, Great Escapes: Southern California was May 5. On that day, the LAist gave it this sweet preview. Kevin Roderick also talked about the book on KCRW and at the renowned LA Observed. Learn more at Donna’s SoCal So Cool blog. Congratulations, Donna!