In this episode, Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist Miriam Pawel talks with Berkeleyside co-founder Frances Dinkelspiel about her new book, California Dreams, an epic history of the University of California, its sweeping social impact, and its hopeful lessons about endurance in troubled times. They cover the university's founding in Oakland, the women who were admitted almost from the start, the families and first-generation students whose lives it transformed, the rivalry that gave rise to UCLA, Clark Kerr's master plan, and the funding pressures facing UC today. Local historian Liam O'Donoghue of East Bay Yesterday introduces the evening.

Miriam Pawel spent 25 years as a reporter and editor at Newsday and the Los Angeles Times, and is the author of The Browns of California and The Crusades of Cesar Chavez. Frances Dinkelspiel is the author of Towers of Gold and Tangled Vines: Greed, Murder, Obsession, and an Arsonist in the Vineyards of California.

This conversation was recorded live on October 7, 2026, at Local Economy, a member-supported community space, in Oakland, California. Because of technical difficulties, the recording ends a little early. (Whoops! We're still learning!)

In this episode, we hear new work from novelist Andrew Boryga and memoirist/novelist Ingrid Rojas Contreras, then the two have a lively conversation about fiction, the strange state of "diversity" in America, and much else.

Andrew Boryga’s novel, Victim, was named a Best Book of the Year by NPR and BBC. A satirical sendup of tear-jerking trauma plots, Victim asks what real diversity looks like and how far one man is willing to go to make his story hit the right notes.

Ingrid Rojas Contreras is the author of The Man Who Could Move Clouds, which was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award, as well as the novel Fruit of the Drunken Tree.

This conversation was recorded live at Local Economy, a member-supported community space, in Oakland, California.

Local Economy hosted Callaloo, the premier journal of African Diaspora arts and letters, for an intimate literary conversation between acclaimed writers Carvell Wallace and Keenan Norris as they explore the delicate art of turning lived experience into compelling narrative. Wallace and Norris will discuss what it means to write oneself—and one's community and family—onto the page: the vulnerability, the craft, the ethical tightropes, and the unexpected discoveries that come with nonfiction and memoir. Callaloo executive editor Kyla Kupferstein Torres led the discussion.

This is the first episode of the Local Economy podcast. It was recorded live on September 17, 2026 in Oakland, California by John Rieger.

You can check out Paulina's book at Cyberselfish.com.