Long-time journalist and Coachella Valley resident Bruce Fessier will be speaking at the Middle Ridge Winery Tasting Gallery on Saturday, July 27 to celebrate the one-year anniversary of Idyllwild Storytellers.
Fessier will be speaking about his life among the Palm Springs elite and how he went from outsider to the go-to for all things arts and entertainment. Everyone wants to be interviewed by Bruce!
The sought-after and celebrated entertainment journalist retired from the Desert Sun in June, giving Fessier time to pursue projects he has wanted to work on for some time.
The Whittier-native and San Francisco State alumnus originally wanted a career in film. He started his journalism career at the Fontana Herald News making quite the impact. His love of the arts, especially film, would lead to being the Desert Sun’s entertainment reporter.
His journalism career at the Desert Sun allowed him to work on passion projects over summers. He was able to explore and work on writing pilots for television shows and books.
Fessier has many credits to his name: interviews with Hollywood mega-stars Frank Sinatra, Zsa Zsa Gabor and Barry Manilow to name a few. He covered all 20 of the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festivals and the heavy metal desert rock scene.
The upcoming projects of Fessier’s focus will be a website dedicated to covering local theater, music and whatever else he wants to write about. Also in Fessier’s future, a book on the Coachella Valley.
Fessier co-founded the Desert Theatre League in 1987, the Jazz Celebrity Golf and Jam Session in 1997, the Desert Rock at the Indio Performing Arts Center concert series in 2010, and the Desert Sun’s Tachevah Music Showcase.
He served on Sonny Bono’s founding Palm Springs International Film Festival committee in 1987 and 1988, according to the press release. He received a Lifetime Achievement Award in Music Journalism at the CV Music Awards in June.
Fessier’s career includes Best of Gannett awards for best writing for a piece on the 20th anniversary of Sonny Bono’s death in 2018 and a series on the history of the mafia in the desert in 2015.
He has won many awards including the California Newspaper Publishers Association awards for stories on the Annenberg Sunnylands Estate in 2012 and the death of President Gerald Ford in 2007. Fessier has also won prizes from the Associated Press Newspaper Editors, the Society of Professional Journalists and the Palm Springs Women’s Press Club, who named him one of the desert’s “Six Most Interesting Men.”
Brian M. Tracy, poet and producer of Idyllwild Storytellers, is thrilled to have someone of Fessier’s caliber be the celebration speaker. Over the past year, Idyllwild Storytellers has celebrated storytelling through dance, music, poetry, short stories, mythology and the visual arts. It has been very well received here in Idyllwild.
The celebration begins at 7 p.m. on July 27 at the Middle Ridge Winery Tasting Gallery located at 54301 N. Circle Dr.