Listen, World: The Amazing Story of One Courageous Female Journalist

Elsie Robinson Rocked!

Listen, World!

I declared my intention to be a writer in the late 1970s and worked toward that goal through graduate school while working full-time and raising two little girls. In 1990, I published my first human interest column in the Madisonville Messenger. When I moved to Danville in 1991, I started writing a weekly column for the Commercial News and continued for twelve years.

The editor liked my column well enough to move it from Wednesday to Sunday, and one of my most treasured possessions is a box of letters from “fans” written to me, responding to a column that had meant something to them. I had a few hundred readers, and I was happy with that but still hoping in the secret place of my heart that someone somewhere would read me and syndicate my work.

But syndication or skyrocketing success never happened for me.

So you can imagine my interest when I came across Listen, World: How The Intrepid Elsie Robinson Became America’s Most-Read Woman. This biography by Alison Gilbert and Julia Scheeres tells the story of a woman who — through sheer grit — became a columnist, illustrator, poet, and author. At the height of her career, she had 20 MILLION readers every day! Think about…