This Sunday at 10:30 am, the Unitarian Universalist Church of Hot Springs, welcomes back Janis F. Kearney, author, presidential memoirist and proud daughter of cotton sharecroppers of the southeast Arkansas Delta, to discuss the amazing life of her centenarian father Thomas James “TJ” Kearney.
In her fourth personal memoir, “Sundays with TJ: 100 Years of Memories on Varner Road,” Kearney shares the lessons learned and the stories passed on, from this iconic southern figure who, with his wife, Ethel, challenged and surpassed the obstructions of race, class and economic realities as they raised 17 children with unconditional love, and non-negotiable expectations for success.
Janis F. Kearney, publisher, author, oral historian and literacy advocate, is one of 19 children born to Arkansas Delta sharecroppers, and cotton farmers. She graduated from the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville with a B.A. in Journalism, and completed 30 graduate level hours at UA Fayetteville, and the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, in public administration, and Journalism.
Janis F. Kearney went to work for Civil Rights legend Daisy Gatson Bates’ award-winning Arkansas State Press in 1987, as Managing Editor. In 1988, she became Publisher/Owner of the Newspaper. In 1993, she took a sabbatical from the newspaper to work with the Clinton Administration in Washington, DC, where she served in the roles of: White House Media Specialist, the White House; Communications Director, US Small Business Administration, and Personal Diarist to President William Jefferson Clinton, the White House Oval Office Staff.
She was selected in 2001, for a two-year W.E.B. Du Bois Fellowship at Harvard University’s Center for African and African American Studies; in 2003, for a two-year appointment as Chancellor’s Lecturer at Chicago City Colleges; In 2005, for a two-year appointment as Humanities Fellow at Chicago’s DePaul University Center for the Humanities; and in 2007, a one-year Visiting Humanities and Political Science Professorship at Arkansas State University (ASU).
Kearney and her husband Bob J. Nash, founded Writing our World Press (WOW! Press), a micropublishing company, in 2004. WOW! Press publications include: Cotton Field of Dreams: A Memoir; Quiet Guys Do Great Things, Too – as told by Frank Ross; Conversations: William Jefferson Clinton…from Hope to Harlem: Once Upon a Time there was a Girl: a Murder at Mobile Bay; Something to Write Home About: Memories from a Presidential Diarist; Black Classical Musicians in Philadelphia, by Elaine Mack; and “Daisy: Between a Rock and a Hard Place“, a biography of civil rights leader Daisy Lee Bates. Kearney’s third memoir, Sundays with TJ: 100 Years of Memories on Varner Road, featuring the late TJ Kearney, 107-year old Kearney patriarch, debuting Spring 2014.
The Wisdom Seeker’s book group meet at 9:00am to continue the discussion of War of Worldviews: Where Science and Spirituality Meet – and Do Not. By Deepak Chopra and Leonard Mlodinov.