Self-Elected: A Sneak Peek for Women's History Month

Today, we’re sharing a sneak-peek of our Chief Flockster’s upcoming book, Self-Elected, in honor of Women’s History Month. A young lisa wise gets acquainted with art, involved in grassroots politics, and wonders what war could possibly be good for? 

Somewhere in the mid-1970s, I called Pocatello, Idaho my Idahome. Around the same time, my somewhere-in-her-mid-to-late 20s mother was a newly-minted divorcee and an enthusiastic ceramicist and printmaker. Together with a stained-glass artisan named Judy, she rented a gallery space in the (still) not thriving downtown. We’d pull up in her brown Pinto and proceed to shape some of my fondest memories.  With me by her side, Mom would throw pots, spinning one piece after another. We’d stuff the kiln full of art that paired well with macramé, from bud vases to ash trays, waiting eagerly to see what emerged more beautiful from the boxed inferno. I loved everything about it. It was tactile, practical, and involved a cash register.

That was the same decade when Ruth Bader Ginsburg would rise up as a legal powerhouse in her volunteer role with the ACLU. In the latter part of the ‘70s, I vividly remember riding my bike through the streets of Hailey, Idaho, drumming up votes (or not, in this case) for President Jimmy Carter. He might not have been able to compete with the charm Ronald Reagan brought to the Republican ticket, but Carter sure did change the future when he nominated RBG to the US Court of Appeals in 1980. Thank you, President Carter. While you may have lost the election that November, you certainly changed the future of my rights as a woman. But I clearly didn’t know that at the time. When Reagan officially won the election in the midst of the Iran Hostage crisis and I watched my mom cry at the results, I penned an essay I’ve referred to often in my adulthood. In it, I wrote:

Hi I’m Lisa. I want to know why there are wars. The hostages might be freed but, if we have more wars they’ll take away more people. And Reagan, he is not doing anything about it. He is fighting against girls so they can’t work. What about if you’re poor. I just don’t know why dumb Reagan won.

I was spot on and fully entitled to my heartbreak. Little did I know that Carter planted the seeds of justice in that court appointment and that Justice Ginsburg had my back—and my future.

Self-Elected comes out Fall 2022. Stay tuned on the blog for more previews & updates on how to order. Thanks for being here, friends.