Living Smart & Well with Janis F. Kearney

Inez Bracy, Lifestyle Strategist, interviews Janis F. Kearney, former presidential diarist to President Bill Clinton, and editor for the Arkansas State Press, and author of Daisy: Between a Rock and a Hard Place.  Ms Kearney transforms civil rights legend Daisy Gatson Bates' life from black and white, to living color.

Kearney interviewed Bates many times; here she creates a riveting, fictionalized last interview granted by Bates, as she lay dying in Little Rock, Arkansas.  Most of the persons, places and experiences in the book are based on fact, and builds upon the Daisy Gatson Bates 1957 memoir, Long Shadow over Little Rock. 

Using creative license and sublties Kearney  “fills in” places left un-filled, and colors incidents and experiences, to bring Daisy Bates to life. She plums the mysterious murder of Bates’ mother, and the orphan’s childhood; the young woman’s prophetic decision to share a traveling salesman’s life; her non-traditional role as co-publisher of an award winning newspaper; her leadership role at a time, and place where women rarely led, and her most prominent role as the face and voice of the 1957 Central High School Integration Crisis.

Ms. Kearney answers readers questions about the book.