Muse: EPISODE LINK

I’M NOT YOUR MUSE: BOOK LINK

TRANSCRIPT:

Colleen: Welcome back to Hot Flashes and Cool Topics.

Today, we are speaking with Lori Zimmer and Maria Krasinski.

Welcome To the show, ladies.

Lori – Thank you for having us.

Maria: – Happy to be here.

Colleen: – Bridgett and I

really enjoyed reading this book, and not just reading the content, but also

seeing the beautiful illustrations that you did, Maria. You both are so talented. And

the book is called I’m Not Your Muse, 31 Profiles of Women in the Creative Arts,

whose contributions have been erased from history or rewritten. And I like the fact

that you mentioned that it might be that they’re rewritten and not accurate. I’m

gonna ask you, Lori, first. How did you come up with the idea for this book?

Lori: It kind of just revealed itself to me. Maria and I, this is our third book

together. And I do a lot of research for every book and just in general.

And I kept coming across these interesting ladies that I had heard of, or maybe not

at all. And we’ll keep them in a little like separate Excel file because that’s

everything in my life comes down to an Excel file. It’s pretty dorky and outdated,

but that’s just I am who I am. And when the list was getting really lengthy,

and so I was just like, yes, this is the next topic, it was approaching 100 women.

And I just started delving in and finding out what I what I could. And finally,

it was difficult, but narrowed it down to the 31, which, as you can imagine, was

no easy task.

Bridgett: – Right. And you know, so many of these women, I went through your

list and I listened to your book and I said, how many of these women had I heard

of before? Three. I had heard of three women.

Lori: – Really?

Bridgett: – That is it. – Out of 31.

Alice, Alice B. Toklis.  The brownie or the

fudge, the hashish  fudge. And we heard of that. I had heard of Loie Fuller.

I heard that on the History Chicks podcast. So I’d heard about her. And then Martha

Gellhorn, Hemingway. And that was the only three. I could not believe out of this

whole list. I had only heard of three of these really incredible women. And then

Maria, these women, it had to be hard to find information on them.

I sat down and I googled every one of them to see

what they look like. But how was that to get artwork to illustrate for that?

Maria: Yeah, it was quite a range. Some are more known than others. Like you said, you

know, Martha Gellhorn or, you know, Alice B. Toklas, although often she was beside

Gertrude Stein when you would find pictures. So for some, there are quite a few

historical images. So that was obviously great reference material to work with others,

especially some of the ones who were, you know, sort of the 100 years ago,

not 50 or 60 years ago, or even more, there might be a painting of them, or maybe

one very formal old style kind of photograph. So with them, I kind of use that as

a reference. But then I looked up a lot of what was the fashion of the

era or I tried to incorporate the artwork that they did or if they were a writer

or a dancer, other things from the medium that they worked in to create kind of a

collage of their life experience.

Colleen: – So you say you have 100 women in your Excel sheet and you narrow it down to 31.

How did you go about picking which women would be in the book?

Lori:  Well, I had a

couple of different, well, obviously, not obviously, I really wanted, I tried to make

sure to make it as diverse as possible because, you know, like, I need to use my

voice to promote women in other countries and other ethnicities and other fields and

whatnot. But A lot of it came down to the availability of information to me,

and now I do my research process is really multi -layered. I started out with the

internet, but the internet you can never trust. So the internet I used to give

ideas, right? And from there I go to book, rare book rooms and archives and blah,

blah, blah, blah, and a lot of the women had maybe no mentions in the

New York Times archive, or there was maybe a book written about them 50 years ago.

So for those women, I just had to give up the quest for this particular book,

because if I were writing just a regular biography, I would travel,

and I would go further. But with 31 women, I had to give myself some limitation.

And I also, I know that there are some other really fabulous books out there about

female artists in different, you know, there are some that are just general,

some that are focused on New York City, and those are wonderful, but I wanted to

include some other women that were in the creative arts as well, because

although I kind of have personally like evolved around the art world, I’m not an

artist. And I think that like, what I do is just as important as an artist. And

that the same for these, these women. So I tried to go with like, writing and

music and performance and architecture and design, as well as artists.

Bridgett: Yeah, that was something I really enjoyed about your book is that it was so

diverse, that we got to hear about so many different women that were from all over.

And another thing that stood out to me, which it’s not surprising, is the number of

men that took credit for the work of so many women. How, how were you able to

really, I mean, you just talked about how you researched, but how could you find

out how, you know, they had to really dig to get to, to get their really,

their real story out. I can’t even talk. I’m so mad about it, I can’t even talk.

Lori: – Yeah, aside from like white knuckling through this research for like a year and a

half, there has been like, the reveal for a lot of the stories was correspondence

has been found in archives by other more meticulous researchers than I am,

who within the last 20 years have found a lot of troops out there. But it does

seem to be consistently true with most of these women. I will say, one of the

women that I cover is Clara Driscoll, who turns out, because of correspondence

revealed that someone found in 2009, she designed a lot of the Tiffany lamps that

we know today. But I don’t, that was, I will defend Tiffany,

Lewis Comfort Tiffany for a hot second because that was just his practice. He didn’t

give credit to the men in his designers in his business either. So this wasn’t

necessarily him like trying to, he greatly respected Clara Driscoll and he paid her

as such. So this wasn’t as devious as the other stories.

Colleen: Yes,

but didn’t Tiffany have a rule that said if you’re a married woman or an

engaged woman, you cannot work there? I don’t know how much credit I want to give

Tiffany. I don’t want to give them credit, but some of the other stories, the men

were actively trying to erase these women’s names.

Lori: And I know it’s not okay,

this isn’t that, but I do not want to like throw every man’s name in that same

devious kind of, you know, action. But you’re totally right about that and that’s

why she worked there and retired and worked and retired three times first time

because she was engaged so therefore she couldn’t work there. Then when that marriage

didn’t work out she stopped when she finally got married then he died then she

retired again when she got married for the second time so you’re not completely

wrong

Maria: – I think Lori and I would stay in contact, you know, while in the process

of making the book. And I was like, every day is like, oh my God, guess what I

found today. You’re not going to believe this. There’s just this constant stare at

me like, seriously, seriously.

Bridgett: as an artist, how do you protect yourself? Has anything like that ever happened to you where

someone takes credit for something that You did?

Maria: – Luckily not, at least not that I know of. At this point, I’ve certainly seen it

happen or I could have been diminished and trying to do your best to champion or

really trumpet the person who’s really behind the magic making, but thus far,

I have escaped that.

Colleen: – Well, that’s good to know. I think one of the women that really represented what

we’re talking about with men taking credit was Alice Guy Blanche, is that her last

name?

Lori:  – Alice Guy Blanche. –

Colleen:  You said it much better than I did.

Lori: – You gotta do a

little, you gotta do your little– – Blanche. – Blanche.

Colleen: – Alice Guy Blanche. But she was the mother of the movies and I thought it was so

interesting that she went to see this first short little film and all the men were

talking about how the cameras were and she’s like but this content is boring this

boring content is not, and they’re like no I have a better camera than

you and in creating that, she then became head of productions for a film company.

Then created her own studio and then men started taking credit for her films. It

was her husband, correct? They started taking credit. It was it was everyone. Um, so

initially

Lori: Yes, and yes, um Initially, uh, so when she was present the day that the

Lumiere brothers shared their Demonstration film this is what they were called. They

were just supposed to demonstrate how the cameras worked and I believe it was it

was just workers walking out of their factory. And she was with her boss, she

worked at Gaumont Films and she was just a secretary at the time, Leon Gaumont. And

she left there asking him if she could borrow some of the equipment ’cause she

said, you know what, this would be a great way to tell stories. And her first

film, a rendition of her first film is that you can look at most of them on

YouTube. It’s called The Cabbage Fairy, and it kind of like, it must be where

Cabbage Patch Kids got their idea from because it’s an actress who’s a friend of

hers walking through a cardboard field and where babies are growing in the middle of

cabbage leaves. And for a while, like after she left,

and she and her husband, whose last name was Blache, decided to start their own

company, and they ended up moving to Flushing Queens, which was this pre -Hollywood

then to Fort Lee, New Jersey, which was the pre -Hollywood Hollywood Which I think

is kind of crazy.

Leon Gaumont tried to take credit for all the films that he she made under his

Company because he gave her Infinite money that she had a stable of actors and

everything and then Once she left him her husband tried to take credit for all of

the films that they made when they were in business together and you can find

videos on YouTube as well of her as an older woman like still talking to the media

still trying to say these are my films and I think she recovered maybe 125 of

them but like if it weren’t for her, like who knows when we would have developed

narrative film. Like, can you imagine movies just being for a demonstration, right?

Like, how obsessed we are with movies. And she barely,

she’s not even in, I remember taking a history of film class and I had, she was

not even mentioned. Like, they didn’t start to talk about women until like the 20s

or 30s, which it’s incredible.

Bridgett: Yeah, when I was reading that part.

I kept thinking Colleen, back when we started podcasting. And when we went to these

podcasting conferences and the men were more concerned with, this is my microphone

and this is my camera. And the women were like, they were wanting to hear just

content stories, how to get a message across. It just reminded me of that.

Lori: Wow.

Colleen: Yeah, it really did. Parallel. It was. It really did. Bella,

Bridgett:  Bella Costa, DeCosta, I’m not saying this right. We are butchering these

names. We have. I am. And that was an easy one. Belle DeCosta Green. That was one

that really stood out to me because JP Morgan really backed her. So that was a

different take on the men. Like he really pushed her forward. What, what were your

thoughts on that one, like how that happened, how that came about.

Lori: – It is kind of,

it was a rarity, the implicit trust and also, so basically J .P.

Morgan, when he was building his private library as the rich men did back then,

that was one of the things you did to show off your wealth. And he hired her,

his nephew found her. She was working at the Princeton Library, I believe. And he

really, like, let her go out and go to these auctions around the world with his

link to his bank account. And it is kind of rare and wild,

but I’m glad that he did it because she really shaped what it meant to collect in

the gilded age. She made sure that the collection was really well rounded with aside

from like volumes and illuminated manuscripts, she had like Renaissance drawings and

things that she thought were important to history and her whole goal was to turn

his library into a teaching and library and a scholar library which also like wasn’t

precedent for the time it was uh You would hoard them and even it just shows

his implicit trust in her because he died in 1913 and he left  instructions

with his son to appoint her as head of like the library foundation. Not every person was sexist in every single facet of their lives

Although I’m not sure I would say JP Morgan was a kinder, great man. (all

laughing)

Bridgett: – It was really shocking though. I was like, wow. And it was so

interesting. Colleen and I are in a different book club and we were talking that night and they were suggesting books for the

next and she came up. And I had just heard of her that day. And is it the–

Lori: – Personal Librarian. – Personal Librarian. – It’s a great book. It’s a great book.

Also, she’s finally, that book was a great book and brought attention to her. And

also the Morgan Library itself, I believe it just closed in May, did a huge

exhibition on her, finally. Because one of the rooms is her office,

and it was pretty thorough, right, Maria?

Colleen: – Well, I think another thing about the

book is that the artwork that you do so beautifully, Maria, really almost speaks as

loudly as the stories. How did you go about choosing what to include for each

picture, each piece of art for each woman?

Maria:  – Well, from the beginning, I wanted them all to be, to have a portrait, you

know, often they’re the sitting as the kind of passive muse for many of the women,

they were the subject of another man’s artwork. And so here’s just sort of, they’re

the subject again, but they’re looking right at you, you know, have a little bit

more agency, maybe a little sassy look on their face. So just kind of creating that

as a consistent through line and then giving each of them kind of a fancy frame

tried to find some things that were maybe again of that era, maybe like an art

deco style for someone from like the early 1900s and then

almost all the background, some of them are a little bit plain but again they’re

they’re referencing elements of the story. Lori would finish a chapter

and so I had been, you know, kind of researching the portrait side of it

and the clothing and how they look. But then what could we pull in from the text

to include in the portrait? Because like our previous two books,

you know, there are no photographs. These are art books, you know, art history

books, but there’s no photographs, which… That’s on purpose. Yeah. It’s on purpose.

People were like, “Great book, but there’s no pictures, how is this an art book?

But for us, it’s really about your imagination and it’s not just here’s a photo

that you may have seen already 20 times before or that’s printed here and there.

It’s meant to kind of let you take what you will from the text, combine with the

illustration and sort of imagine what that world would be and immerse yourself in it

a bit. It’s also just fun, like the fun part of being the illustrators you get to

put a lot of Easter eggs in there so it’s like, if you know you know like

everything that’s there is there for a reason even if it looks just purely

decorative.

Bridgett: It’s it’s so cool too that I like at the end of the chapters that

you have the little just the little bitty illustration too of little accent yeah

that’s about and I thought like the cabbage.

Maria:  yeah the cabbage patch yeah I didn’t

want to draw a cabbage – I’m trying to draw a cabbage, you know.

Bridgett: – Yeah, I think

that’s gotta be so fun to be able to do that, just to create, ’cause I am so

bad, like my family is, I have such good artists in my family and I—

Colleen:  – You are

not one of them, Bridgett.

Bridgett:  – I am not one of them.

Lori: – You guys do appreciate the

art.

Colleen: – And it makes it different, it makes the book stand out, and a great coffee table

addition to anybody’s home because like you said, sometimes it’s nice to create your

own imagination of what they would actually kind of really look like or be doing in

your head. And a lot of these women I noticed live very long lives, not all of

them, but a lot of them live very long lives. And I wonder if having this purpose,

this artistic nature helped with their longevity because they do say having that

creative outlet can help. So that’s that’s kind of interesting.

Lori: Totally agree.

Absolutely. I never thought about that, but you’re so you’re so right.

Colleen: Like I was

looking at the, you know, because you put in when they were born. I’m like, these

women back in the day had really long, some of them till 1990s and longer, which

is and some of them were really destitute. And they still lived you know like still

creating art until the very end you know so you’re right that that purpose is

drive.

Maria: Absolutely and that with with the the portraits too I want especially for

these these artists who’ve been creating their whole lives you can find the pictures

when they’re you know in their 20s and this and that but I really wanted to have

a variety of ages represented.

Lori: like okay well here are you know is Leonora Carrington

when she’s in her 70s not when she’s 25 in Paris you know just to have um that

representation more because they were working and productive and thriving and I mean

they say that now like a key to longevity is staying curious staying active you

know I really love that too so like when Maria is making these drawings I I see

them sometimes, but I I didn’t know that she was doing all different ages, and I

absolutely like loved that. That was a surprise to me, especially like as a woman

who is in middle age like I’m like, yeah Well, I’m still doing stuff. So I should

be represented in that way as well. So I just really I loved that was a surprise

to me.

Colleen:  And it was I loved it Well, that’s why sometimes collaborating on projects is

so much more creative because you’re getting the best of both sides. One of the

women that I really thought was a kick butt woman was Martha Gellhorn and I loved

her story. Can you talk about why you picked her and what she was why she was not

a muse?

Lori: Okay so Martha Gellhorn was an incredible war correspondent and writer,

and she covered every major conflict over, uh, believe a 60 year period,

just like right until the very end. And her, the thing that she did wrong in her

life, why we don’t, let me, let me give them one more accolade of how badass she

was.

You could say it, she was a badass, she was.

She was the only woman right there on the ground on D -Day.

She immediately started bearing stretchers and just wrote about what she saw

and she wouldn’t take no for an answer. I mean, who is going to hide in the

bathroom of a hospital ship to sneak aboard like a war front? Like, it’s insane as

that. But anyway, her third husband was Hemingway. And so since that moment that

they got together, she was forever known as Hemingway’s third wife. You know,

her only, her only husband. And so she kind of gets put to the side for his grandeur. And like,

we all, I feel like Hemingway is like a really

stereotype of, like, how we look at great men. Like, we know he’s terrible and

abusive and an alcoholic and said all these horrible things and treated people this

horrible way, but we let his art, like, wash over us and we’re like, but that’s

fine because he contributed, you know, contributed so much to literature. And I love

his books. I do. I do. But I also am a critical thinker that can separate the

artist from the art. And so he tried to, he was very enthralled with with Martha.

She was a writer at the same time. And he, I think,

part of him wanted the idea of having like a dual, like an equal. And then as

soon as he got her, he didn’t want that equal anymore. And he was drinking and

smoking and hanging out with his friends in their house and

there was a war going on and she said, “I don’t think we should be here. I think

we should be on a war front.” And so she left and did what she felt was her duty

and he sent her a telegram that said, “Are you a war correspondent or are you a

wife in my bed?” And that was the end. And then she divorced him and he thought

that He could control her and make her not who she was.

Bridgett: – And could she say– – She’s the only one that left him!

Maria:  – Yeah. – Wow. – We did, when the book first came out,

we did a talk and we were pulling some of those historic images and I think Lori

found the obituaries, the print of his other wives. Almost,

I think one of them just of them just said, “Hemingway’s second wife passes.”

– Doesn’t even give her a name. – Doesn’t even give her a name. – But Martha

Gellhorn, she’s the only one where she had her own headline uninterrupted with his

name. – War correspondent. – War correspondent. – Awesome. – Still came. – She’s kind

of high in the article, but.

Bridgett: – Wow, but then you’ve got the other article, you’ve

talked about Picasso. And I’ve got a list of all the names. (laughing) – I don’t

even use Excel. I use legal pad.

But I have, and I’m going through my names and I feel horrible because I’m sitting

here saying how awful and I’m looking for the name of the woman that he treated so

terribly.

Lori: – Fernanda Olivier. – Fernanda, okay.

Colleen: – You knew that Bridgett. You were just

on the tip of your tongue, of course.

Bridgett: It’s like, I feel awful because the purpose

of this book is to remember these women and I’m like which one was the one that

was with Picasso but I do know her story but that one too, just how he just held

so much power over her that she had to wait she was destitute as well.

Lori: She was

absolutely destitute while he was like I can’t even remember the statistic it’s in

the book but when he like how much cash he had amassed it was like like a million

dollars is like just laying around like who does who does that but I you know it’s

not that I don’t have empathy for the other women that he was horrible to, but they

knew there was you know press about it that he was just like this kind of guy but

Fernand was the first they were really young they lived in like a

squalid dimly lit room in the battle of war which was essentially a shanty and

moments where a lot of amazing artists came out of but you know like picture

-starving artists like we think Picasso and zillions of dollars, but you know he

was he had to start from someplace and she was a popular artist model at the time

when she met him. I don’t think she was very interested in him at first, but

apparently had some kind of power and they were together for quite a while through

his blue period and she was continuing to model and then when he was done with her.

He didn’t want her to really have any part of what their life was before and

she was a writer. And she was writing about those times, you know like at the turn

of the century Paris was an incredibly interesting time. Especially in the battle of

war and she was writing memoirs, and he blocked her from publishing them for almost

her entire life. And Picasso and Me is now out there. I think it was finally

published in the 80s. She started to print it as a serial with a magazine, and he

put a cabache on that. But it’s a great book. It’s a shame. She was a great

memoirist of, you know, like the time she was around. She was living there.

She was working with other artists, but just he had such a need to control

that he barely like she was living off of nothing.

Bridgett:  Yeah,

see the pattern for a lot of men in the book. And unfortunately, I don’t seem that

a ton has changed in the last 100 years.

Lori: Hopefully, I mean, obviously,

there are a lot of men who consider women their partners in life, but there are

still those times where women’s ideas are considered their secondary,

that if someone else will take credit, I still think that is happening way too

often in society today.

Colleen: Another thing I really liked, Maria, is that I feel like

when I looked at the pictures, you could tell the personalities coming through in

the art, especially like Ada Bricktop Smith. I feel like I can tell who she was

before I read the story.

Maria: – My job is done here.

Colleen: – Well, I really felt like her personality came through. How

did you create that? Was it through the research that Lori was sending you? Was it

from looking at old photos? How important was it for you to kind of create their

personality through the photo or through the art?

Maria:  Oh, huge. And frankly,

you know, now that the book’s out, I was sort of terrified going into this book

because I’m not a portrait artist. Our previous books, I love drawing buildings. I

like drawing nature. Drawing people, real people is very stressful.

Although I guess this is the case where because they’re lesser known, people aren’t

going to be like, that doesn’t look like Frida Kahlo because maybe they don’t know

who they are. But with Bricktop, especially, I mean, she does have a

treasure trove of images and, you know, she was a singer, she was a nightclub

owner, she was just the hostess with the mostest, so there’s a lot, a lot of the

historical record of her is just this like buoyant, joyful, but also like the boss

lady kind of attitude, running nightclubs. So I wanted to kind of give her that

cool life of the party, but you know, she has,

she holds all the secrets.

Bridgett:  Yeah, and she’ll keep them. And she will keep all of

your secrets.

Maria:  Exactly. And so like when getting the text from Lori and seeing,

you know, what thread she pulled out, I was like, okay, well, this one, she lived,

you know, she was kind of sassy and she knew it, and she owned that. So let’s

make sure she has that kind of aura about her. So there were a lot of draw,

redraw, trying to get– are they smiling? Are they not? Trying to capture that.

Bridgett: I love, too. One of the other ones I thought was so cool was Clara Rockmore. Yeah, what a great name for somebody like that.

Rockmore.

Lori:  Oh my And she’s so glamorous, too. Did you look at pictures of her?

Bridgett: – Yeah, I looked at her video. – And the video, yeah, with her, you can watch the

video. – When she was older, yeah.

Colleen: She lived in 1998, so that was,

I mean, in our world fairly recent, I know anybody who was born over 2000 would

say, “Oh, that was a long time ago,” but– – Yeah, right? I didn’t speak of them.

Bridgett: – Yeah, I was so fascinated, to the illustration there and I’m like, I’ve never

heard of this. I, what is this, this, this instrument? And it was really,

it was incredible. But then again, you know, the, the man got mad at her. Like,

what, what was it? Cause she got married. Was that it?

Lori: Yeah. So, you know, I think

that Clara Rockmore and Maria Tallchief, who was the first, American Prima ballerina. Prima ballerina. Thank you. I almost said Prima Donna. I’m like,

that is not true.

They’re kind of similar in a story like this. So, so Clara Rockmore, um, she was

a, uh, a violinist as a child, like a prodigy. And then she hurt her arm and she,

she, she couldn’t play in the way that she wanted to anymore. She was at a party at the Plaza Hotel

one night and where she met Leon Perriman, who invented the Theremin.

And even if you’re like, I don’t know the Theremin, we all know the Theremin.

It’s the first electronic instrument that like Twilight Zone and,

you know, like the, or a good vibration. – Yeah, Beach Boys. – Beach Boys and,

but I think more, we think of it as like kitschy horror movies or whatever. And

this was an instrument that like, it was, they were destined to meet,

at least for her personally, because she couldn’t her hands couldn’t do what she

wanted them to do anymore. But with the electronic field, she was like, completely

intuitive and can play this instrument. And because of her work or her

understanding, her implicit understanding of this invention that she did not invent.

She elevated it from like a doodad to like she played in a Carnegie Hall and

concert halls and whatever. And the same for Maria Tallcheif like Fallon Sheen,

her one -time partner, came in and revolutionized ballet for the American audience and

but like she was able to interpret his choreography in such a vigorous way that

made it iconic. So both of these women were able to take something, an idea of

someone else. It’s almost like Balanchine and Theremin were their muses.

And they elevated this one thought that these two guys had into something that

became iconic, right? But they’re not given credit at all.

Bridgett:Yeah,

I mean that was so incredible. Just that I was like I’ve got to know more about

this

Colleen:  what is your hope for this book that women? Obviously learn

more about the women in the book But that’s get kind of started to say okay, I

want to learn more They’re probably a lot more women out there that I didn’t know.

Well, what is your hope?

Lori: Well, I hope that not just women read this book because

it’s a book about history. And I’ve read dozens of books about great men with no

problem, because I’m just interested in history. So I don’t think this is a book

for girls.

It’s a book for people who are interested in creativity and amazing things in this

world. But I do not like, look, this isn’t an original idea to write about women

who have diminished. But I hope that it just makes more people write these books

until we get to the point where they’re just history books and not about something

that’s been kept from us by the writers of history. That’s that’s sort of my goal.

And I also like I’ve said this before like these are just little vignettes and

obviously like I spent a lot of time researching it but I don’t have as much time

as each woman deserves. So I hope that another writer who loves to write biographies

reads about one of them and be like I want to take this to the next level because

some of these women do have biographies but they’re they’re old and dusty and I

read them so you don’t have to and they’re really boring. I mean they’re really old

books but they’re just very very dry and you should read it with a transatlantic

accent while you’re reading it it’s just like awful that was Awful.

That was the not fun part of this class. Along that you sort of have,

you’re like, “Oh, well, we wrote about Claire Rockmore.” Or there was already a

biography about Fernanda Levy. Well, you go to any library or bookstore, there’s like

a whole shelf of Picasso biographies or this, you know, it’s not, well, just because

it was mentioned once, somebody already told that story there’s so much to find and

discover and yeah so hopefully it inspires further research but also I think to

appreciate who’s making art today and who’s in the story and who’s not getting the

credit they deserve.

Bridgett: Yeah my question is, is there someone that you just out of all

of these women which I can’t really I can’t pick a favorite but there are a lot

of really, really interesting stories. Is there one that each of you just kind of

like, okay, that’s my friend. That’s my person.

Maria; So many. It’s hard to pick one.

Bridgett: I know. It’s like picking your children.

Do you have one, Maria?

Maria:  I mean, my switch is every day.

Lori: I know my switch is you

like, I’m really in a Martha Gellhorn moment right now. And part of it is I also

work with a youth journalism startup. So like encouraging young voices to go out

there and find stories and tell their stories. And so I just, I kind of use her

as an example a lot for, you know, getting your voice out there.

Mari:  I love Bricktop.

I live not far from Bricktop’s Shea Bricktop. So it’s now an organic grocery store.

Unfortunately, it did not last. But you know just walking by just imagining Bricktop walking these streets. She probably was at this I know she was at this Metro

stop because I’ve seen a photo of her there.

Lori:  Oh, that gives me chills that I know

exactly the picture you’re talking about!

Colleen: There’s so many in this book to enjoy and we’ll make sure to have the link to the

book in our show notes.

Lori: – Thank you. –

Lori and Maria, thank you so much for

joining us and for writing and illustrating this beautiful book. – Thank you so much.

– Thank you.