Danielle Bergstrom is the founder and editor-in-chief of Fresnoland. The moderator for “How Does the Central Valley Harness Its Power?” at Arte Américas, in Fresno, California, before the public program she joined us in the green room to chat her favorite punctuation mark, why she looks toward the edges of a city, and the joys of peach season.
What’s the last book you read that you enjoyed?
I’m rereading Little Fires Everywhere right now, which is a fictional book about a suburban family that’s confronting race and class issues in a really awkward way. I’m enjoying that book quite a bit right now.
What made you decide to pick it up again?
My work world is so intense as a journalist that I need an escape, but I still crave, even in the fiction that I read, stories that touch on the themes that we deal with in life. That one is just so insightful, and it’s such a biting criticism of middle-class suburban life.
Is there a fictional character on screen or in literature that you identify with?
There’s a character in the show The Newsroom, played by Olivia Munn. Her name is Sloan. She was an economist who got pulled into journalism and was very much a no-nonsense, no-bullshit kind of person, and also had a hard time understanding people who didn’t care about policy. As an urban planner transplanted into journalism, I don’t have a lot of patience for people in my field who think that journalism should just be sensational entertainment-type stories, when we’re talking about real people’s lives.
What is your favorite locally grown food here in the San Joaquin Valley?
Peaches and nectarines. We’re in peach season right now, and I’m like, let’s go!
What is your song of the summer?
I’m still working on that, but my daughter and I have been really into the xx this week. Gracie Abrams has a new album coming out in July, so we’ll be listening to that on repeat.
What’s your favorite punctuation mark?
I am not a chatbot, but I do love an em dash.
What’s one thing you’d put in a time capsule to explain California today?
Photographs of our landscape, because you can tell so much about a society through just the way that the city and the interface between the city and the country looks.
Would these be photographs of landscapes across California, or Fresno specifically?
I’m always very Fresno-minded, so, yes, Fresno. The edge of the city, as Fresno urban becomes Fresno rural. You learn a lot about a place by looking at the edges.
What’s one hope you have for California’s future?
I feel very inspired by the optimism and sense of determination of Californians. I want the Central Valley to own that in the way that it feels like the coastal parts of our state do. We haven’t really stepped into our power in really owning the amazingness of our region.