author
Anna Black Mezquida
A San Francisco writer with a remarkable range, she transformed firsthand experience, journalism, poetry, short fiction, radio, and film into a long and varied career. Her eyewitness letters from the 1906 earthquake offer a vivid glimpse into one of the city’s darkest moments.
1 Audiobook
A-gypsying
by Anna Black Mezquida
About the author
Born Anna G. Blake in San Francisco on September 1, 1883, she began writing poetry as a girl. She later became a poet, journalist, and fiction writer, publishing the poetry collection A-Gypsying in 1922 and contributing stories and articles to national magazines. In 1915, she wrote the lyrics for “The Wondrous Exposition,” the theme song of the Panama-Pacific Exposition.
Her work extended to radio scripts and film scenarios, and some of her poems were set to music. During World War II, she served with the U.S. Office of Censorship and its Message Analysis Unit. She also led the Citizens’ Committee to Save the Cable Car, presided over the Pacific Branch of the National League of American Pen Women, and later taught writing at the San Francisco YWCA. She died in San Francisco on March 12, 1965, and her papers are held at Berkeley’s Bancroft Library.