The Camel and the Scorpion: 2018

On Writing: More on Genre

Women Writers, Women's Books recently tweeted a 2017 article on writing by author Maddie Dawson.

Article name: Oh, You Write Fiction? What Kind?

An excerpt:

“Oh, you write fiction? What kind?”

I sighed. I’ve had six novels published, but I still don’t know how to answer this question.
I usually start out by saying what the publisher calls my books on the contracts. “I write women’s fiction,” I say.

The trouble is what happens next.

“Ohhh!” the person invariably says, bright-eyed with understanding. “You mean romance novels! Chick lit!”

And then I get all shifty-eyed and fast-talking, explaining myself like a crazy person, and making the situation even worse.

Ms. Dawson shares bittersweet stories of how richly textured so-called women's fiction is.

She ends with this statement: "So what about if we didn’t try to pigeonhole novels, give them a category to belong to? What if we just called them—for lack of a better word—fiction? And let it go at that. Would that work?"

I can relate.

O wishing well, wishing well: What genre is my book?

Image: “A Young Woman at a Well” by Goya (Francisco de Goya y Lucientes) (Spanish, Fuendetodos 1746–1828 Bordeaux) via The Metropolitan Museum of Art is licensed under CC0 1.0

Camel and Scorpion's Playlist: Dreams

The Camel and the Scorpion opens in Texas in 1977.

What music did protagonists, Caroline and Lydia, hear on the radio?

"Caroline noticed Lydia’s navy blue pea coat was pilling, frayed at the sleeves. She watched Lydia struggle to clasp the bottom black button, but it wouldn’t fasten around her large hips. Probably a hand-me-down, or else Lydia was once much thinner.

"Students spilled out from the four, three-story limestone buildings that comprised much of the campus, accidentally brushing against Caroline and Lydia in their haste to make their next class or grab a cup of coffee or hot chocolate at the student union. The students slapped each other on the back, chatting excitedly on that first day of class, snippets of their conversation drifting in the wind, 'Hey man, who you have for psych, what’d you do over Christmas break, isn’t Fleetwood Mac’s song ‘Dreams’ far-out?' But none said hello to Lydia.

"Up ahead, Caroline winced as she spied her colleague Joe Lambert turn away from the magnificent outdoor fountain in front of the student union, and head straight toward her and Lydia. Lambert taught American Politics, sported a Fu Man Chu mustache, pony-tailed hair and a green army jacket, though he’d never served a day in the military. He had spearheaded the UTSB search committee that led to Caroline’s hire, but informed her she’d been their second choice—the first being a Georgetown University male grad who’d bowed out after landing a job at Princeton. As if UCLA were some rinky dink outback. As if graduating summa cum laude from there were second-rate.

"As Lambert passed Caroline and Lydia, he said hello with an exaggerated smile and mimicked pecking frantically at a typewriter with his index fingers. 'Remember, dissertation professor!'

"Lambert had also given Caroline an ultimatum during the interview—her dissertation had to be finished in six months. Or else."

Fleetwood Mac's Dreams:

"You say you want your freedom

Well, who am I to keep you down?"

Fleetwood Mac, Dreams

On Writing: Writing Despite Illness

Jane Friedman hosted a guest blog in 2017 by Audrey Berger Welz.

An author with Parkinson's Disease and a survivor of an abdominal aneurysm, Ms. Welz shared how chronic and acute physical events intertwined with her writing.

Ms. Welz wrote How I Used Writing to Survive. An excerpt:

I was very proud of how I was dealing with [Parkinson's]. Emily and Bess melded into the Circus of the Queens after my husband had asked me who the queens were and I couldn’t come up with an answer. It also slowly became a full-blown adult novel and it grew and grew as I wrote and rewrote until I fell in love with my own pages. Then in just a second my world changed. Like a tsunami crashing its way to shore with all the force and destruction it could muster, an undiagnosed aneurism exploded in a major abdominal artery as my novel was nearing completion.

... While in my coma I saw my novel written out word for word. It was in a triangle surrounded by a circle and encompassed by a square. I used it to draw out every ounce of strength in me. Even though I couldn’t move, talk, and could barely see, I would recite passages in my head trying to communicate with the doctors that I was the same girl who had written this beautiful book. Though now disabled, my brain was intact, and I wanted to live. I was worth saving and I needed to hold my finished novel as a book, in my hands.

The Camel and the Scorpion is a book inspired by true events. It is the story of #StrongWomen - Caroline, Lydia, Anna - who spoke out for a good world despite their personal challenges.

Image credit: “Life of Nichiren: A Vision of Prayer on the Waves” by Utagawa Kuniyoshi (Japanese, 1797–1861), Japan via The Metropolitan Museum of Art is licensed under CC0 1.0

Quotes to En-Courage: You Have Your Own Dignity

"All that a person has is his or her own story: Who they are, what they've gone through, what their families have gone through. This is their story, and when you're trying to deny them their story, you're taking away their power. ... You don't have to cower to power. You have your own dignity."

Dolores Huerta, in the documentary, Dolores

Credit: Gage Skidmore

On Writing: Tips for Author Blogs

Thanks to Women Writers for retweeting a nutrient-rich 2016 article by Katie Rose Guest Pryal: Tips for Author Blogs.

Ms. Pryal's introduction to her tips:

Here they are, in order of importance: (1) create relationships, (2) entertain your readers, and (3) sell books.

The first rule is, by far, the most important. (Most of) Your blog posts must have as their main goal to create relationships with your blog readers.

Whether you are writing blog posts on your own blog, writing guest posts on someone else’s blog, or “microblogging” on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram, your primary goal had better be to create relationships with other people.

If you are simply spamming people to “buy my book,” then you are driving readers away from you. You are failing at social media, and worse, you are being annoying.

Repeat this to yourself every time you sit down to write a blog post: “My job is to create relationships with my readers.”

As an introspective sort, I both welcome Ms. Pryal's tips and feel trepidation about them.

But I'm committed to sharing my book with as many readers as possible.

Consequently, I must show the same courage in reaching out to people as Caroline, Lydia, and Anna do in The Camel and the Scorpion.

Image credit: “Girl in the Dunes” by Jozef Israels (Dutch, 1824–1911) via The Metropolitan Museum of Art is licensed under CC0 1.0

Quotes to En-Courage: Know Your Worth Even If They Don't

“Make sure you don’t start seeing yourself through the eyes of those who don’t value you. Know your worth even if they don’t.”

― Thema Davis

Image: “Nude Woman” by Jules Pascin (American (born Bulgaria), Vidin 1885–1930 Paris) via The Metropolitan Museum of Art is licensed under CC0 1.0

Camel and Scorpion's Playlist: Don't Leave Me This Way

The Camel and the Scorpion opens in Texas in 1977.

What music did protagonists, Caroline and Lydia, hear on the radio?

Disco was almost at its 1978 peak.

Thelma Houston's Don't Leave Me This Way is an iconic song from this time:

As Caroline drove about the city in Brunhilda, her 1968 red Buick Skylark, don't you think she was bouncing her shoulders to the infectious dance beat?

"Set me free, set me free!"

Quotes to En-Courage: You Need to Make it Uncomfortable For Them

“You have to find out who has the power to give you what you want, and then you have to go after them. And I don’t mean in a violent way because I’m a nonviolent person, but you need to be in their face. You need to make it uncomfortable for them...."

Lois Gibbs, St. Louis Public Radio interview, 2014.

The Camel and the Scorpion is a book inspired by true events. It is the story of #StrongWomen - Caroline, Lydia, Anna - who spoke out for a good world despite the personal and professional risks to themselves in doing so.

Image credit: “WOMAN” by bixentro is licensed under CC BY 2.0

Camel and Scorpion's Playlist: Elvis Has Left the Building

The Camel and the Scorpion opens in Texas in 1977.

What music did protagonists, Caroline and Lydia, hear on the radio?

Well, in 1977, Elvis Presley died.

Elvis Presley, press photo for Jailhouse Rock. Public domain. Source: Wikimedia.

Although past his prime at the time of his death, at only 42, he was a national icon.

Below is one of his songs, Don't Be Cruel:

Strong Women #10: Lois Gibbs

The Camel and the Scorpion is a book inspired by true events. It is the story of #StrongWomen - Caroline, Lydia, Anna - who spoke out for a good world despite the personal and professional risks to themselves in doing so.

This post is the 10th in my Strong Women Series. The series honors women and girls of courage.

Lois Gibbs. Source: Lois Gibbs

Lois Marie Gibbs is my 10th #StrongWoman.

Courage is doing something even when we are afraid, yes? This anecdote from Ms. Gibbs' 1978 beginnings as an environmental activist awes me:

"The woman who helped free an entire community from a toxic dump, literally rewriting environmental laws in the process, was so shy at the start of the struggle she tried to hide behind a tree when neighbors called on her."

Ms. Gibbs was "just a housewife." Even after blooming into a nationally-known community activist, this dismissive label stuck at times, including from her own mother, noted in this story:

"In 1981, now a single parent, with two children and $10,000, Lois left Niagara Falls for the Washington, DC area to establish a national organization to help families living near other Love Canal-like sites. Many doubted her ambitious goal to guild a movement – even her mother told her as she drove away 'you’re forgetting you’re just a house wife with a high school education'."

So what did Lois Gibbs do?

In short, Ms. Gibbs brought the world's attention to a giant toxic dump, otherwise known as a "model planned community" called Love Canal, in which families were born, slept, ate, played, went to school, made love, and got sick and died.

To do this, Ms. Gibbs had to power through her shyness and self-doubts; overcome the disdain of local, regional, state, and national experts, officials, and business folk; learn by trial and error about community organizing; make mistakes; and take risks. From The Center for Public Integrity:

"... one day in 1978, the Niagara Falls Gazette published a story about toxic dump sites cluttering the region. Love Canal was one, and the news screamed from the page: 21,000 tons of toxic waste had been buried next to the school property, underneath the playground. The now-defunct Hooker Chemical Co. had sold the site to the school board 25 years earlier, for $1. 'Oh, my God!' Gibbs thought, reading the Gazette. 'Every single day I took my children to the playground to play.'

"Pressing to move her son to another school, Gibbs won an audience with the school board superintendent. The school chief settled into an over-sized leather chair behind a broad, shiny wood desk. He seated Gibbs in a school desk normally used by kids. Sunken in her seat, she slid two doctors’ notes across the desk saying her son’s sickness could be tied to the dump, she said.

"The superintendent glanced at the notes, then slid them back. ‘We’re not going to do that because of one hysterical housewife with a sick kid,’ he said, as Gibbs recalled it. ‘Well, if your kid is so sick, why don’t you go home and take care of him? Why are you running around to City Hall and the school board?’

"Tears streamed down Gibbs’ face. 'All of a sudden, I became the bad guy.'”

In the beginning of the Love Canal odyssey, Ms. Gibbs thought a leader would emerge - someone she could support and follow to protect her children. She came to realize it was she who would have to step up.

Women of courage like Lois Gibbs? They are who kept me writing The Camel and the Scorpion for 20 years, so I could share the stories of women like The Camel and the Scorpion protagonists, Caroline, Lydia, and Anna.

Honorable, imperfect, brave, vulnerable champions, all of them. Risking their personal and professional lives to stand up for their ideals.

Quotes to En-Courage: When I Dare to Be Powerful

“Desert Senna, Cassia armata” by Margaret Neilson Armstrong via The Metropolitan Museum of Art is licensed underCC0 1.0

When I dare to be powerful, to use my strength in the service of my vision, then it becomes less and less important whether I am afraid.

Audre Lorde

The Cancer Journals, Special Edition, Aunt Lute Books, San Francisco, CA, 1997, p. 13.

Strong Woman #9: Ilhan Omar

This post is the ninth in my Strong Women Series. The series honors women and girls of courage.

Ilhan Omar. Credit: Ms. Omar's twitter account.

Ilhan Omar is my ninth #StrongWoman.

Ms. Omar is the first Somali-American to be elected to political office in the United States. She is also Muslim, a woman, and a first-generation refugee to the United States from Somalia by way of Kenya.

"When we came to the United States, we had this extensive orientation. I remember it was this picturesque environment—people were happy, everybody had what they needed, shiny houses. And when we arrived, we were driving through Manhattan, and I remember seeing panhandlers and homeless people sleeping on the street and graffiti and trash everywhere. I remember turning to my father and saying, 'This isn't the America you promised.' And my father said, 'Well, you just wait. We haven't gotten to our America yet.'

"At the time, I was in middle school, and it was really rough for me. I didn't speak English. I was dealing with being an extreme "other" for the first time. I'm Muslim and black and was coming from a Muslim-majority country where everyone was black. I had never had a conversation with my family about my identity. I remember the only words I knew were "hello" and "shut up." But when I'd come home and complain to my father that this wasn't what he promised me, he would tell me I had an opportunity to change my reality, that I needed to work harder to learn English, that I had to work harder to build relationships so that students could see me beyond my otherness. I needed to be better so that my environment would be better.

"... ]My father] and my grandfather both believed that this country has gotten better because people have believed they had a stake in it. They taught me that I had an obligation to act and to be part of that progress."

Source: Interview, Elle Magazine

Ms. Omar came to the United States as a refugee. She was a child. She practices Islam. She was born in Somalia - one of the countries that President Trump singled out in his visa ban.

This woman has courage. In a societal climate in which there are so many vicious verbal, political, and physical assaults against Americans who are Muslims, Ms. Omar speaks out:

"I think when you ... demonise and dehumanise, it is easy for people to commit acts of violence against those individuals because they no longer see them as a person, as someone who has feelings, who's worthy of respect." Source: AlJazeera News.

In this video, Ms. Omar talks about how racism threatens the United States and her hope for the country:

".. what I represent is an America that still allows people to fulfill that American dream that you can come here at the age of twelve only knowing two phrases in English, have the opportunity to put yourself through school, and ultimately defeat a forty-four year incumbent to win a seat at the table."

More from Ms. Omar, from an interview with the Minnesota Monthly:

"One thing I’m proud of is using the attention around my election to reshape our ideas of patriotism and democracy: who should be at the table, who these tables are designed for, and how we change that. I’m making sure everybody who shares any of the six marginalized identities that I carry can now see themselves and say, 'Yes, young people can serve. Yes, somebody who has multiple children, young children, can serve. Someone who is an immigrant, someone who doesn’t have a majority religious background can serve.' All of these things now allow people to see that, yes, if I am a reflection of my community, then I can serve."

"... it's at times really hard, when you are personally affected by policies, to sort of step out of that and to think about how everyone else is also affected, and to be there for them, and to continue to fight and shift the narrative and get people involved when you know you yourself just kind of want to hide under the pillow, and just really not engage. It's sort of like motherhood. No matter how sick or sad you are, if you know you need to be strong for your children, you need to show up."

Women of courage like Ilhan Omar? They are who kept me writing The Camel and the Scorpion for 20 years, so I could share the stories of women like The Camel and the Scorpion protagonists, Caroline, Lydia, and Anna.

Honorable, imperfect, brave, vulnerable champions, all of them. Risking their personal and professional lives to stand up for their ideals.

Strong Women #8: Audre Lord

The Camel and the Scorpion is a book inspired by true events. It is the story of #StrongWomen - Caroline, Lydia, Anna - who spoke out for a good world despite the personal and professional risks to themselves in doing so.

This post is the eighth in my Strong Women Series. The series honors women and girls of courage.

Audre Lord. Credit: Mildred Thompson.

There's not much I can add about Audre Lorde than what she herself said, as depicted in Mildred Thompson's portrait of Ms. Lorde.

Black
Lesbian
Mother
Warrior
Poet.
She Who Makes Her Meaning Known.

Ms. Lorde renamed herself twice. As a child, she dropped the 'y' from her birth name, Audrey, and went with Audre, which aligned more pleasingly with her surname Lorde. Later in life, Ms. Lorde chose another new name for herself, Gamba Adisa, which Ms. Lorde translated as "warrior: she who makes her meaning known."

"If I didn't define myself for myself, I would be crunched into other people's fantasies for me and eaten alive." The Cancer Journals.

“I have a duty to speak the truth as I see it and to share not just my triumphs, not just the things that felt good, but the pain, the intense, often unmitigating pain.” Black Women Writers, per Poetry Foundation.

As a woman born to immigrants, a woman of color, a lesbian, womanist, poet, activist, a human with cancer - coming up in the 1940s and 1950s - she needed to be strong to live her fullest life.

“Your silence will not protect you.” From Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches

A ten-minute video below on Ms. Lorde's personal, creative, and activist life - which may be the same thing?

“When I dare to be powerful, to use my strength in the service of my vision, then it becomes less and less important whether I am afraid.”

Ms. Lorde died young - only 58 - in 1992.

Women of courage like Audre Lord? They are who kept me writing The Camel and the Scorpion for 20 years, so I could share the stories of women like The Camel and the Scorpion protagonists, Caroline, Lydia, and Anna.

Honorable, imperfect, brave, vulnerable champions, all of them. Risking their personal and professional lives to stand up for their ideals.

Strong Women #7: Cecile Richards

The Camel and the Scorpion is a book inspired by true events. It is the story of #StrongWomen - Caroline, Lydia, Anna - who spoke out for a good world despite the personal and professional risks to themselves in doing so.

This post is the seventh in my Strong Women Series. The series honors women and girls of courage.

Cecile Richards. Source: Cosmopolitan.

Cecile Richards is my seventh #StrongWoman.

“Every bit of progress we have made in this country, perhaps in the world, has been because there were people willing to speak out even when it was unpopular.”

Cecile Richards, Georgetown speech, April 2016

Ms. Richards is most well-known as Planned Parenthood's president, a position she's held since 2006, and which will end in May this year. Ms. Richards' time with Planned Parenthood will close as a new endeavor opens: the publication of her forthcoming book, Make Trouble: Standing Up, Speaking Out, and Finding the Courage to Lead — My Life Story.

But Ms. Richards' activist life emerged in childhood: At age 14, her school disciplined her for wearing a black armband to protest the Vietnam War. Well, one might say her activism began in the cradle, as Ms. Richards' parents were Ann Richards (former governor of Texas) and David Richards, a civil rights attorney.

As a human lightning rod for Planned Parenthood, an organization committed entirely to the reproductive health of women and men - to medical, economic, and social justice - Cecile Richards is the target of daily attacks from individuals, organizations, and political operatives. Ms. Richards' valor in withstanding these electric strikes and swirling storms so resolutely ... it astounds me.

Women of courage like Cecile Richards? They are who kept me writing The Camel and the Scorpion for 20 years, so I could share the stories of women like The Camel and the Scorpion protagonists, Caroline, Lydia, and Anna.

Honorable, imperfect, brave, vulnerable champions, all of them. Risking their personal and professional lives to stand up for their ideals.

Strong Women #6: Dolores Huerta

The Camel and the Scorpion is a book inspired by true events. It is the story of #StrongWomen - Caroline, Lydia, Anna - who spoke out for a good world despite the personal and professional risks to themselves in doing so.

This post is the sixth in my Strong Women Series. The series honors women and girls of courage.

Dolores Fernandez Huerta. Credit: Gage Skidmore

Never heard of Dolores Fernandez Huerta?

I'm embarrassed to say I hadn't heard of Ms. Huerta until I recently watched a movie about Cesar Chavez, and I thought: Who is that woman who stands by him as a fellow organizer? Why don't I know of her? She is astounding.

Amy Goodman, Democracy Now, called Ms. Huerta "one of the greatest civil rights leaders in this country's history."

Dolores Huerta originated the phrase, "Sí, se puede" - "yes, it's possible" - which Barack Obama adapted for his "Yes, we can" motto.

With Cesar Chaves, Ms. Huerta founded the National Farmworkers Association, which later became the United Farmworkers Association. It was Ms. Huerta who served as the union's contract negotiator with the growers, who eventually came to the bargaining table after years of grinding, bloody work by Ms. Huerta, Mr. Chavez, and the farmworkers.

But let's go back to a time before the creation of the National Farmworkers Association.

Born in 1930, Ms. Huerta was a feminist from a young age, inspired by her mother, Alicia. Ms. Huerta's mother, after many years of saving, bought and ran a 70-room hotel in Stockton, California, that served low-wage workers in their agricultural community of Mexican, Filipino, African-American, Japanese and Chinese working families. Alicia charged room rates that the workers could afford, frequently waiving the cost entirely.

After college graduation, Ms. Huerta became a teacher in Stockton, and this experience presented another inspiration that would shape her future as a world-changer: Some of her students came to school hungry and without even shoes to wear.

Involved in the Stockton Community Service Organization, Ms. Huerta learned and honed essential skills in community organization, advocacy, being the proverbial squeaky wheel, and surmounting obstacles from within and without a community.

Can you imagine the environment in the early 1950s, when Ms. Huerta came of age - a woman, a woman of color, a woman who championed low-wage workers - during the McCarthy Era, when all social- and economic-justice movements were branded as Communist?

However, about that time, organizing the farmworkers, Ms. Huerta said: "You had this ambiance around you that you could really change the world."

I invite you to watch this C-Span video narrated by Ms. Huerta about her life's work for economic and social justice.

And below, a half-hour Democracy Now segment on Ms. Huerta below, lauding the release of a film documentary on Ms. Huerta's life and work:

Women of courage like Dolores Huerta? They are who kept me writing The Camel and the Scorpion for 20 years, so I could share the stories of women like The Camel and the Scorpion protagonists, Caroline, Lydia, and Anna.

Honorable, imperfect, brave, vulnerable champions, all of them. Risking their personal and professional lives to stand up for their ideals.

Strong Women Series #5: Cris Williamson

The Camel and the Scorpion is a book inspired by true events. It is the story of #StrongWomen - Caroline, Lydia, Anna - who spoke out for a good world despite the personal and professional risks to themselves in doing so.

This post is the fifth in my Strong Women Series. The series honors women and girls of courage.

Cris Williamson. Source: Freight & Salvage.

Never heard of Cris Williamson?

A singer and songwriter, Ms. Williamson's album, "The Changer And The Changed, was the all-time best selling independent record from the early 70s until the early 90s - the same time period that King's Tapestry was the best selling record by a female solo artist." (Source: warr.org)

In an interview with the San Francisco Examiner, January 2015, Ms. Williamson said:
"We are given a voice at birth, we sort of open our beak like a little bird ... People go, 'Where did you get that voice?' And I think about it. I didn't get it anywhere. It pretty much came with the package. My thing was: ‘Now, what am I going to do with that gift?’"

So Cris Williamson had a remarkable voice, a gift as a songwriter, and the chutzpah to found several record labels over the years. But why is she one of my #StrongWomen heroines?

Again, from warr.org: ".... Williamson didn't get even 1% of the media attention of .... other artists, mostly because she was an out lesbian before Melissa Etheridge, Phranc, or even Martina Navratilova - she was the biggest lesbian star in an era when lesbianism had zero mainstream visibility."

In a 2009 interview with Berklee, Ms. Williamson answered a question about being a role model for young musicians who are lesbians. Ms. Williamson replied: " .... my approach to music is to speak as though we were all creatures who come to a water hole, in a clearing, in the wilderness. And everybody deserves the water, and the water to me is music. And that's what brings us all human beings together. And I think music should bring people together and not drag them apart."

Ms. Williamson answered the interviewer's question in the context of mentoring musicians, but this phrase within her response is what spoke to me of a vision, a source of courage:

.... we [are] all creatures who come to a water hole, in a clearing, in the wilderness. And everybody deserves the water ...

If Ms. Williamson had concealed her sexual orientation and feminism, we might all know her as well as we know some of her contemporaries: Carole King, James Taylor, Carly Simon, and Joni Mitchell.

In choosing to come out as a lesbian and as a feminist in the 1970s, Ms. Williamson's musical voice gave heart to legions of girls and women who shrouded a part of their true selves in secrecy.

Women of courage like Cris Williamson? They are who kept me writing The Camel and the Scorpion for 20 years, so I could share the stories of women like The Camel and the Scorpion protagonists, Caroline, Lydia, and Anna.

Honorable, imperfect, brave, vulnerable champions, all of them. Risking their personal and professional lives to stand up for their ideals.

Strong Women Series #4: Crystal Lee Sutton

The Camel and the Scorpion is a book inspired by true events. It is the story of #StrongWomen - Caroline, Lydia, Anna - who spoke out for a good world despite the personal and professional risks to themselves in doing so.

This post is the fourth in my Strong Women Series. The series honors women and girls of courage.

Crystal Lee Sutton. Source: LA Times

Never heard of Crystal Lee Sutton? If no, you may recognize her movie-world name, Norma Rae, as played by Sally Field.

From the Los Angeles Times:

In 1973, Sutton worked at the J.P. Stevens textile plant in Roanoke Rapids, N.C. Fed up with the poor pay and working conditions, she joined the Textile Workers Union of America and became an organizer whose activism quickly earned the wrath of management.

Moments after being fired, she wrote "UNION" on a piece of cardboard, climbed onto a table in the middle of the factory floor and raised the sign for co-workers to see. Stunned by her courage, they switched off their machines and focused on the 33-year-old mother of three who earned $2.65 an hour.

Some raised their fingers in a V for victory, but a union contract was still years away.

The victory that day was over fear.

Ms. Sutton didn't just have to conquer her fear about her bosses and lack of income, she had to overcome fear about going against the tide of her friends, family, and neighbors who also worked in the mill. From the APWU:

As the daughter of mill workers herself, Sutton felt mill workers’ children learned an attitude of resignation from their parents. “All their life, all the children ever hear is J.P. The parents come home and say, ‘Lord a mercy, they worked me down today,’” she explained to Leifermann. [emphasis mine]

Listen to Ms. Sutton in this 1980 interview from Pacifica Radio, which is in the University at Albany's Talking History archive. Ms. Sutton describes "brown lung," a common affliction of textile-factory workers, which eventually kills its victims. Although her aunt suffered symptoms of brown lung, she was afraid to get diagnosed with brown lung because she was afraid the company would find out about it and fire her.

"It is not necessary I be remembered as anything, but I would like to be remembered as a woman who deeply cared for the working poor and the poor people of the U.S. and the world," she said in a 2008 Burlington Times-News interview [in 2008]. "That my family and children and children like mine will have a fair share and equality."

" .... People are going to long know where I'm coming from: I believe working people need to join together, and the only thing they got going for them now is a union." Washington Post, 1985.

Women of courage like Crystal Lee Sutton? They are who kept me writing The Camel and the Scorpion for 20 years, so I could share the stories of women like The Camel and the Scorpion protagonists, Caroline, Lydia, and Anna.

Honorable, imperfect, brave, vulnerable champions, all of them. Risking their personal and professional lives to stand up for their ideals.

Crystal Lee Sutton died in 2009.

Strong Women Series #3: Wilma Mankiller

The Camel and the Scorpion is a book inspired by true events. It is the story of #StrongWomen - Caroline, Lydia, Anna - who spoke out for a good world despite the personal and professional risks to themselves in doing so.

This post is the third in my Strong Women Series. The series honors women and girls of courage.

Wilma Mankiller. Source: NewsOn6, 2010.

"In a just country, she would have been elected president."

Source: Gloria Steinem

"I'm a pretty ordinary person that just happened to be given an opportunity to do extraordinary things in my life," Wilma Mankiller.

"I've done everything I could do to make everybody in the world mad at me this past four years [as chief of the Cherokee Nation]."

And that's what strong women must do - persevere on a path strewn with rocks thrown in anger.

Ms. Mankiller:

Survived childhood destitution
Discovered her political voice for social justice in the 1960s, during the Occupation of Alcatraz by Native Americans from a number of tribes (Indians of All Tribes)
Recovered from a near-fatal auto crash
Lived through three serious physical illnesses, including cancers
Was elected as the first woman principal chief of the Cherokee Nation, serving in that capacity for 10 years
Raised two daughters
Wrote the best-selling book, Mankiller: A Chief and Her People
Received the Presidential Medal of Freedom

A short video homage to Wilma Mankiller below:

MANKILLER from Valhalla Entertainment on Vimeo.

Women of courage like Wilma Mankiller? They are who kept me writing The Camel and the Scorpion for 20 years, so I could share the stories of women like The Camel and the Scorpion protagonists, Caroline, Lydia, and Anna.

Honorable, imperfect, brave, vulnerable champions, all of them. Risking their personal and professional lives to stand up for their ideals.

Strong Women Series, #2: Anne Moody

The Camel and the Scorpion is a book inspired by true events. It is the story of #StrongWomen - Caroline, Lydia, Anna - who spoke out for a good world despite the personal and professional risks to themselves in doing so.

This post is the second in my Strong Women Series. The series honors women and girls of courage.

Photo credit: Fred Blackwell/Jackson Daily News, via Associated Press

You know the 1963 photograph of the young men and women at the Woolworth's counter in Jackson, Mississippi.

Anne Moody is the woman of color sitting at the counter.

Anne Moody in 1969. Credit Jack Schrier

You may not know that Ms. Moody wrote a book. A-bucket-of-icy-water-thrown-in-your-face-to-wake-you-up kind of book. Coming of Age in Mississippi. It is a book of thunderous power. Written in 1968.

About that day at the Woolworth counter, Ms. Moody wrote:

…. at noon, students from the nearby white high school started pouring in to Woolworth’s. When they first saw us they were sort of surprised. They didn’t know how to react. A few started to heckle … Then the white students started chanting all kinds of anti-Negro slogans. We were called a little bit of everything. …. A couple of the boys took one end of [a] rope and made it into a hangman’s noose. Several attempts were made to put it around our necks. …

A man rushed forward, threw Memphis from his seat, and slapped my face. Then another man who worked in the store threw me against an adjoining counter.

Down on my knees on the floor, I saw Memphis lying near the lunch counter with blood running out of the corners of his mouth. As he tried to protect his face, the man who’d thrown him down kept kicking him against the head. If he had worn hard-soled shoes instead of sneakers, the first kick probably would have killed Memphis. Finally a man dressed in plain clothes identified himself as a police officer and arrested Memphis and his attacker.

Days or weeks later:

… I had gotten another letter from Mama. …. she told me that the sheriff had stopped by and asked all kinds of questions about me the morning after the sit-in. …. She told me he said I must never come back [home]. If so he would not be responsible for what happened to me. “The whites are pretty upset about her doing these things,” he told her. Mama told me not to write again until she sent me word that it was OK.

… I also got a letter from [my sister] Adline in the same envelope. She told me what Mama had not mentioned – that Junior had been cornered by a group of white boys and was about to be lynched, when one of his friends came along in a car and rescued him.

Besides that, a group of white men had gone out and beaten up my old Uncle Buck. Adline said Mama told her they couldn’t sleep for fear of night riders They were all scared to death. My sister ended the letter by cursing me out. She said I was trying to get every Negro in Centreville murdered.

Anne Moody had to summon courage just about every day of her life, from childhood on into adulthood. There were challenges from all quarters, at home and at large, in the small towns where she came up. Obstacles going to college. Fear, stress, danger in her civil rights work.

Ms. Moody knew that choices she made might result in violence or loss of income to her family, friends, neighbors back home, because the white folks who wanted to keep the status quo - that's how they operated. Punish the community for what an individual does.

Ms. Moody's story awed me.

Even though she wasn't always likable. She was damn tough on the people around her. I'm kind of amazed her little sis, Adline, let Ms. Moody live with her when she became unable to care for herself. Because Ms. Moody wasn't always so complimentary about Adline in her book.

You can listen to Ms. Moody herself in this 1969 New York Public Radio interview with then Commissioner William H. Booth of the New York City Commission on Human Rights. Thanks to the Anne Moody Twitter account in general, and to Dr. Roscoe Browne's blog specifically, for this resource.

Women of courage like Anne Moody? They are who kept me writing The Camel and the Scorpion for 20 years, so I could share the stories of women like The Camel and the Scorpion protagonists, Caroline, Lydia, and Anna.

Honorable, imperfect, brave, vulnerable champions, all of them. Risking their personal and professional lives to stand up for their ideals.

Anne Moody died in 2015.

On Writing: When a Book Doesn't Fit Into a Genre

“Woman writing” by virtusincertus is licensed under CC BY 2.0

Every agent and publisher I queried about The Camel and the Scorpion took a pass on my book, probably because it is a hybrid. It doesn’t fit neatly into one genre, such as women’s fiction or political thriller. As a result, I believe the agents and publishers assumed the book was unpredictable, and sales would be too.

In hindsight, I understand their reluctance. I, too, crave predictability in fiction if there are major stressors in my life. I want to escape into a specific genre, say, a legal thriller by John Grisham. I need to know that Grisham’s primary character will be an attorney, a major crime will be committed, and the perpetrator will be brought to justice. Knowing those things brings the world back into balance again.

But what if my life is purring along, and all the dragons have been slayed? Predictability is the last thing I desire. I seek expansion and genre-bending books that burst from their red-ribboned packages. Books like Benjamin Percy’s “Red Moon” or Shirley Jackson’s “We Have Always Lived in the Castle.” No doubt, it is harder to market and sell books that fail to be shoehorned into a specific genre. But that doesn’t mean authors should stop writing them and challenging the status quo.

For another perspective, consider author Leah Kaminsky's 2016 article, On Being Genre Fluid, in Women Writers, Women's Books

Strong Women Series, #1: Malala Yousafzai

The Camel and the Scorpion is a book inspired by true events. It is the story of #StrongWomen - Caroline, Lydia, Anna - who spoke out for a good world despite the personal and professional risks to themselves in doing so.

This post inaugurates my Strong Women Series. It honors women and girls of courage.

By DFID - UK Department for International Development - Malala Yousafzai: Education for girls, CC BY 2.0

Malala Yousafzai

Malala is the 15 year-old girl who the Taliban attempted to assassinate. On her school bus.

Her crimes? Speaking her truth about what it was like living with the oppressive Taliban presence. Advocating for girls' education.

This 2009 New York Times video introduced many of us to Malala, only 12 years old at the time:

Class Dismissed: Malala’s Story from The New York Times - Video on Vimeo.

This young girl inspires courage in me. En-courages me.

She has the spirit of the protagonists in my book: Caroline, Lydia, Anna. It is because of girls like Malala that I wrote The Camel and the Scorpion.

Want to learn more about Malala?

Read the book: I Am Malala: The Story of the Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot by the Taliban.

Watch the movie: He Named Me Malala

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