Sunshine/Noir is a collection of essays, fiction and poetry focused on the San Diego/Tijuana region. It’s the first release by City Works Press, a nonprofit small press that got its start publishing San Diego City College’s literary journal. In 2003, the City Works folks decided to step it up and yet keep it a DIY venture. Two years later, they had the funds for Sunshine/Noir.

In the introduction to the anthology, Jim Miller, a San Diego City College English professor, a City Works founder and one of the authors (along with Kelly Mayhew and Mike Davis) of Under the Perfect Sun: The San Diego Tourists Never See, explains the anthology’s title by pointing to San Diego’s paradoxes: the city’s rich history is compromised by its push to grow; no other city in California has as large a gap between rich and poor; and the carefree image the San Diego tourist industry promotes is undermined by a constant military presence. Such dichotomies prompt “attempts to explore the meaning of place,” Miller writes. The anthology seeks to do just that.