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Book critic David Ulin announced today on Facebook that he is taking the buyout offer from the Los Angeles Times. Tuesday is his last day. "This is an opportunity for me to focus further on my writing, which I have been wanting to do," he writes. "I'd like to thank the Times, both as an institution and also as a collection of stellar individuals, for nurturing me all these years -- I first started freelancing for the paper in 1991 -- and especially for the last decade as book editor and book critic. The Times is my home, the place I grew up. I am grateful for every bit of it." Ulin is the former books editor at the LAT, and his successor, Joy Press, already took the buyout. This appears to leave only writer Carolyn Kellogg on the books team, pending transfers from within or new hires. The books staff was once quite a bit deeper and has been inexorably shrinking over the past decade or so.
Ulin's latest book, Sidewalking: Coming to Terms with Los Angeles, is from UC Press this fall and getting a lot of great reviews.
