From Janis Kearney; owner of the Arkansas State Press in 1987
Janis Kearney is an author, lecturer, and publisher. In 1987, she joined the Arkansas State Press team as a managing editor. After three short months, and Daisy Bates’ decision to retire, she purchased the publication and for five years, served as the State Press’ publisher.
In 1992, Governor Bill Clinton began his run for president and she was called upon to serve as director of his Minority Media Outreach campaign. Once Clinton was elected, Kearney worked as the White House media affairs officer, later, the director of public communication for the U.S. Small Business Administration, and finally, the President’s personal diarist, the first person to ever hold such a position.
Following her stint at the White House, Kearney moved to Chicago to begin a two-year fellowship at Harvard University’s W. E. B. Du Bois Research Institute. While there, she began to draft a biography of Clinton, which was published as Conversations: William Jefferson Clinton, from Hope to Harlem in 2006.
Kearney later went on to write several other books, including the first part of her memoir, Cotton Field of Dreams, her first novel, Once Upon a Time There Was a Girl: A Murder at Mobile Bay, the second installment of her memoir, Something to Write Home About: Memories of a Presidential Diarist, a tale of her father, Sundays with TJ: 100 Years of Memories on Varner Road, and a creative non-fiction story of Daisy Bates, Daisy: Between a Rock and a Hard Place.
