When Ariel Delgado Dixon writes about a harvest, she is writing about work she does.
Dixon lives in Western Massachusetts, where she works in farming and teaches writing. Her second novel, Sourland, is set on a marijuana farm in the woods of Humboldt County, and she will discuss it at Vroman’s Bookstore on Friday, August 7, 2026, at 7:00 p.m., in conversation with the Los Angeles author Sam Cohen. A signing follows.
The store, at 695 East Colorado Boulevard, Pasadena, CA 91101, lists the appearance as “Ariel Delgado Dixon, in conversation with Sam Cohen, discusses & signs Sourland” and tags it an adult event and a book signing. The Playhouse Village Association, the business district organization whose public calendar carries the store’s events, listed admission as free as of July 29. Vroman’s own listing states no ticket price, and neither listing states that registration is required.
Random House published Sourland on June 23, 2026. According to the publisher’s description, which Vroman’s reproduces on its event page, the novel follows the disappearance of a farmer named Sapphire, whose scorched truck is found on a mountain road, and the contest that follows between two of her former lovers — Frankie, a former ballet dancer, and Fizz, a former baseball player — for control of the farm and its harvest.
It is Dixon’s second novel. Random House published her first, Don’t Say We Didn’t Warn You, in 2022. She was born and raised in Trenton, New Jersey, holds a bachelor’s degree in creative writing from the University of Southern California and a master of fine arts in fiction from Boise State University, and was listed in 2024 as a lecturer in English language and literature at Smith College.
Cohen wrote the story collection Sarahland, published by Grand Central Publishing in 2021, and lives in Los Angeles. She has been a doctoral candidate in creative writing and gender studies at USC, founded the journal YES FEMMES, and has produced Lambda LitFest.
In review excerpts posted by the publisher, trade critics dwell more on the book’s texture than on its plot. Kirkus Reviews described it as a gritty neo-Western, credited Dixon’s knowledge of both legal and illegal farming practices with grounding the story, and called it “skunky, in the best possible way.” Publishers Weekly described the pacing as expert. Booklist described the novel as engrossing and told from all three main characters’ points of view.
It is one of several author events Vroman’s has scheduled in the first half of August. The store, which was founded in Pasadena in 1894 by Adam Clark Vroman and describes itself as Southern California’s oldest and largest independent bookstore, states on its website that it hosts more than 400 free community events a year.
Vroman’s can be reached at (626) 449-5320, and the store is open from 10:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. on Fridays; it is the organizer of record for questions about admission and registration. The Playhouse Village Association lists one hour of free street parking in the district, a City-owned lot on South Madison Avenue with approximately 100 spaces, and a parking plaza the association places at Union and El Molino, near Playhouse Village Park. Pasadena Transit Routes 10 and 20 serve the district, and the Metro A Line stops at Lake Avenue and Memorial Park. The event listing is at vromansbookstore.com/event/2026-08-07/ariel-delgado-dixon.
In the novel, Sourland is a place people went to start over. The story begins when the woman who let them in stops coming back.
