Cotton Field of Dreams

By Janis F. Kearney

Janis F. Kearney, former publisher of the Arkansas State Press Newspaper, board member of the National Newspaper Publishers Association (NNPA) and personal diarist to President William Jefferson Clinton, has written her first book, Cotton Field of Dreams: a Memoir.

According to her Chicago-based independent publishing house, Writing our World Press, January 1, 2005 is the official publication date of the memoir. A special edition, however, debuted in November, during the William J. Clinton Library Inaugural Celebration held in Arkansas.

Cotton Field of Dreams chronicles Kearney’s amazing journey from the southeast Arkansas Delta where Civil Rights was a dream, cotton was king and education was the carrot that stayed just out of reach for many blacks. Her memoir paints a vivid picture of the roles of women, children and families in the Arkansas delta, and the lessons the Kearney children learned from wise, under-educated parents whose greatest gift to their 17 children was a permission to dream.

Kearney was mentored by founding publisher of the Arkansas State Press Newspaper, and Arkansas’ civil rights legend Daisy Gatson Bates, of the 1957 Central High Crisis. She is currently a visiting fellow and part-time faculty at DePaul University, where she is completing her next book, an oral historical biography on former President William Jefferson Clinton. She has one son, Darryl, and resides in Chicago with her husband, Bob Nash.

Cotton Field of Dreams speaks of the black and white community’s amazement at the dirt poor sharecroppers -- air of people with something; and, how these parents with little to speak of, kept their children out of school during harvest season, yet inspired in them a deep love of learning, and an unwavering faith in a brighter tomorrow. These teachings resulted in 16 Kearney children entering and graduating from such colleges as Harvard Law school, Stanford Law school, Yale Law school, Brown University and other fine schools around the country. Two Kearney siblings served in the Clinton Administration, and four served under Governor Clinton’s administration.

Kearney’s memoir has garnered outstanding marks by people like noted author and memoirist Marita Golden, who wrote: “Janis Kearney writes straight from the heart. This is a lovely celebration of her family’s strengths, journeys, tests and triumphs. Cotton Field of Dreams is a book to treasure, a book that will restore as well as reward.

International attorney, author and friend to Presidents, Vernon Jordan says, Janis F. Kearney achieves a rare feat in writing both poignantly and despairingly of that period in American history most Southern writers either sugar-coat or paint with wide, dark brushes of horror.

E. Lynn Harris, an Arkansas native and prolific novelist, writes: “Janis F. Kearney’s Cotton Field of Dreams is exquisite writing. Hers is a story that touches the soul in its beauty and ugly truths about America’s South.”

Roland Barksdale-Hall, Managing Editor of the Black Caucus of the American Library Association, says, “well-written, Cotton Field of Dreams is a welcome addition to libraries, seamlessly weaving lyrical prose and poignant human drama to entice the reluctant and satisfy the mature to read.”

For more information regarding the book, go to www.writingourworldpress.com   For information regarding the author’s book tour, or to inquire about scheduling an event, contact Patrick Oliver at wowpress@aol.com