How many times have I been asked: “How many books have you sold?” which always makes me grit my teeth. I didn’t end up self-publishing to “sell” my books but to make them available to others, to share my story and experiences with those who need and want to know how artists-activists in the 60s were moved to form collectives, joining forces and skills with others. How multitudes of young people rose up and said, “No!” to bombing the Vietnamese; “No1” to the cruelties of racist segregation; “No!” to misogyny, to all the white man’s tyranny, genocide of our Indigenous peoples; “No”! to all the injustices seeping into our growing awareness. We had to change our lives drastically, discard innocent, self-centered dreams of individual success, praise, rewards we’d coddled as “being important,” not yet aware of much greater demands our developing consciousnesses would need to face––empathy and compassion for example. Our consciousnesses were being raised and forged through tears and excruciating emotional self-examination.
I had to self-publish and accept the lack of interest from the systems’ agents and small book publishers that I’d determinedly tried to interest in memoir-recreations of my journey in being politicized in my 20s. So––I was blessed to find an older, experienced union organizer, skilled in assisting many authors in the publishing process. We’ve joked together that he is a doula as he gets our “babies” up on Barnes & Noble and Amazon (Bezos’ dreadful behemoth now being boycotted in a desperate attempt to stop the billionaire take-over of our threatened democratic country.)
An old friend, who is very creative and skilled in graphic design both helped me with the cover design and saw to its execution in the book production process. Writer friends penned reviews and gave me support. There was no other choice for me. I had to be grateful for my supportive team, get on my horse, take the reins and put my stories out there in the spirit of sharing the work done in the 60s to educate, resist, confront all the tyrannies inhumane humans are capable of performing.
How do I find the people who can be inspired by my stories to initiate their own creative, collective actions? Fuel the belief and reality that we can made a more aware, more caring world? That deeply considered actions can push back, smother, wipe out the cruelty that is seeping into my land? I can give readings at socialist-oriented meeting places, showing that active protest can be nourished by creative art forms. Images, scenes, dialogue, characters, plots feed and inform our actions. When we witness others struggling with their humanity, we are inspired to do the same.
I must find ways to inspire conversation focused on the exchange of ideas, the sharing of struggles, the envisioning of supportive solidarity, of hope and belief that together we can, we will, we must overcome the tyranny of fear and hate and resignation. “My message is: “Those young people made a difference in the 60s and we can make a difference in 2025, over a half century later.”
Jeri Hilderley 