A longtime California journalist takes the state’s water crisis personally.

Journalist and author Mark Arax is Californian, born and bred. Fresno, to be exact – a place he calls “the middle of California.” His grandfather picked fruits and vegetables in the San Joaquin Valley; his father was born on a raisin farm outside of Fresno.

In his work, Arax blends rigorous journalism with personal experience into a story form of reporting that’s not new – Hunter S. Thompson, Tom Wolfe, Joan Didion, among others, pioneered it – but it combines compelling forces into a hybrid sometimes referred to as “literary journalism.” And he brings it to bear on stories of his home state.

Arax actually started his journalism career back East, at the Baltimore Evening Sun. But he returned to California in the 1990s to track down leads in the 30-year-old murder of his father. His first book, In My Father’s Name, is about that chronicle.

He stayed in California, working at the L.A. Times as an investigative reporter. While there, The Nation magazine referred to his stories about corruption in California prisons as “one of the great journalistic achievements of the decade.”

His latest book, The Dreamt Land: Chasing Water and Dust Across California, blends reporting, history and memoir as it adds to the ongoing saga of California’s elemental battles over a diminishing supply of water. “We developed the most industrialized farm belt the world has ever known,” he says. “That’s a magnificent story and it’s also a sobering story.”

He’ll sign books and talk about all this and more on behalf of nonprofit news site Voices of Monterey Bay at The Lab on July 10. (Read the complete interview with Mark Arax at montereycountyweekly.com/entertainment/art.)

MARK ARAX presents 7:30pm Wednesday, July 10, at The Lab, 3728 The Barnyard, Suite G-23, Carmel. Free; donations accepted. joe@vomb.org, mark-arax.com