Listen, World!: How the Intrepid Elsie Robinson Became America’s Most-Read Woman

by Julia Scheeres, Allison Gilbert

*Winner of the 2023 Northern California Book Award*
The first biography of Elsie Robinson, the most influential newspaper columnist you’ve never heard of At thirty-five, Elsie Robinson feared she’d lost it all. Reeling from a scandalous divorce in 1917, she had no means to support herself and her chronically ill son. She dreamed of becoming a writer and was willing to sacrifice everything for this goal, even swinging a pickax in a gold mine to pay the bills. When the mine shut down, she moved to the Bay Area. Armed with moxie and samples of her work, she barged into the offices of the Oakland Tribune and was hired on the spot. She went on to become a nationally syndicated columnist and household name whose column ran for over thirty years and garnered more than twenty million readers. Told in cinematic detail by bestselling author Julia Scheeres and award-winning journalist Allison Gilbert, Listen, World! is the inspiring story of a timeless maverick, capturing what it means to take a gamble on self-fulfillment and find freedom along the way.

Genres: Biography, Nonfiction, History, Womens, Audiobook, Historical, Feminism

352 pages, Hardcover

Published September 27, 2022

About the author

I was born in Lafayette, Indiana and now live in the Bay Area. I'm the author of the memoir "Jesus Land," which was a New York Times and London Times bestseller and of the award-winning "A Thousand Lives: The Untold Story of Jonestown," which is being developed into a feature film. I teach memoir and creative nonfiction, online and in San Francisco, and work with private clients on book projects. For more information, please see: www.juliascheeres.com

Reviews

[Beary Into Books · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rating 4.5

“The first biography of Elsie Robinson, the most influential newspaper columnist you’ve never heard of”


I LOVED this book. I was hooked from the first page! I’m honestly upset that I never knew about Elsie Robinson sooner. She went through so much and kept going. I teared up multiple times while reading this. She was such a strong woman and is really someone you can look up to. I feel so inspired after reading this. This book was well written and was told in such a fascinating way. Definitely a book I would recommend everyone to read especially since I’m sure not a lot know about Elsie Robinson. If you start this one be prepared to clear your schedule because it will hold you captive until the last page.


Thank you so much @sealpress for the gifted copy. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

[Zibby Owens · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is the first biography of Elsie Robinson, one of the most influential newspaper columnists. After a divorce and difficult time, Elsie went into the Oakland Tribune and became a writer. She advised on parenting, being a mom, and family. But she also wrote about social issues of the time, like racism, capital punishment, and anti-Semitism. She had a lot to say about women's issues, like her pay, time off work, and her grueling hours. In a letter to her male boss, William Randolph Hearst, she demanded these items improve and got her way. She was someone who saw the horizon. She was someone who saw the future, who knew that it was worth fighting for.

This book inspired me because Elise was way before her time. She took what gave her joy, what she knew she had talent in, the writing, and brought those talents to the Oakland Tribune and paved the way for herself in 1912 at a time when women didn't have as much of a voice. Another theme that ran throughout her life was seeing doors, charging through them, and not wasting any opportunities to follow her passion.

To listen to my interview with the author, go to my podcast at:
https://www.momsdonthavetimetoreadboo...

[Amanda Karch · Rating 5 out of 5]

As a feminist who yearns to be a full time writer, I related wholeheartedly to the story of Elsie Robinson and that is thanks to the incredible storytelling abilities of Scheeres and Gilbert. They bring Elsie to life, weaving excerpts from her own columns, memoir, and poetry with a detailed account that puts you in her shoes in the early 1900s. 24 hours was far too long to read this book because I HAD to know what else Elsie had accomplished and why on earth the world forgot her.

[Bronwyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

I heard of Elsie Robinson through an interview with Allison Gilbert on the Lost Ladies of Lit podcast and thought she sounded so interesting. This biography by Gilbert and Julia Scheeres is really well done. Robinson had quite the life and it’s a shame she’s not better known. I highly recommend this book and the podcast.

[Savannah L. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Book: Listen, World!
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Author: Julia Scheeres and Allison Gilbert
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Genre: Biography
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Star Rating: 5/5 ⭐️
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I immensely enjoyed this biography. It was a captivating read following the life of Elsinore Robinson who had such lows in life but still carried on and tried to live the best life she possibly could.

Right off the bat you get the impression that Elsie Robinson is a boss-ass-b*tch who stands up for herself and what she believes in. A strong- willed, opinionated woman who will speak her mind.

“And so it went throughout her girlhood, waking to God and falling asleep to the Devil.”

We’re taken back to the late 1800’s and early 1900’s of Elsie’s youth and it’s just an eye roll and the zero rights women had and how weak they were viewed. We are briefly taught women’s history and what life used to be like for women living prior to having rights. It gives me a whole new level of respect towards the woman who lived during those times.

In Elsie’s bits of writing you can get a sense of her humor. It’s satire and playful and it gives you more perspective on what kind of person she was.

It’s sad how she craves more in life but due to financial reasons she couldn’t go off to school, leaving marriage as the only option left for her. So she enters into a loveless marriage that eventually leads to a messy divorce.

I loved reading the history and how things got started that we still see today and I also really liked that the authors would also let you know what was going on in the world and especially the things leading up to womens rights. It’s amazing to see how far we’ve come.

And don’t even get me started on how the medical field handled child-birth back then. A complete nightmare. No wonder the death toll for child-bearing was so high.

My favorite quote that was written in Elsie’s own words, “Look back at your own life. When were you the happiest? Was it the night of that big banquet on which you had counted so much?

The trouble is that we start out with the wrong idea of pleasure. Whereas on the most ordinary occasion, for no reason whatever, joy wells in you like a ride. The leap of pleasure from the simplest things - a hearty handshake, a spray of flowers on a garden wall, the merry caper of a little dog, the tingle of the wind across your face - the crackle of a fire on a rainy night.”

Doing what she loved - writing - she reached out to girls in the newspaper. “Tell me about the happys- and tell me about the sads.” Elsie had lots of sad moments in her life and wanted to reach out to other young girls who are going through hardships and have no one they can trust to turn to and help them navigate life.

I cried when her 21 year old son died from a combination of his asthma and influenza that turned into empyema. Elsie wrote, “Details? What do they matter - now? There are no details when the thing you have loved best goes on. Only a wailing, witless darkness.” I was really close to losing my son so I guess that’s why this passage really hit home and effected me so. It was a melancholy ending.

Elsie strive for women’s rights. She remarked that we do not need to have children to be happy.
Yes! 🙌🏼 to this day women are still being told this. Motherhood is not for everyone. We can not count on children to make us happy. We, ourselves can only do that.

I am so happy that they put in a couple of her poems since, due to copyright, the Listen World! book of poems Elsie had written never got published again so copies are very difficult to come by and are not sold anymore.

She was a magnificent writer who was able to draw in so many people because her work was relatable. I definitely will be saving this book and having my children read it when they become teenagers. This biography was so well written and I think everyone should read it because there’s so many life lessons in here that you can learn and relate to.

I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

[Maureen Hardwick · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really enjoyed this biography of Elsie Robinson. Incredible story of resilience and fortitude. She is a woman to be known! Highly recommend.

[CatReader · Rating 3 out of 5]

Julia Scheeres and Allison Gilbert are American journalists and authors.  Their 2022 book Listen, World! is a vivid biography of fellow female journalist and writer Elsinore “Elsie” Robinson (1883-1956); the book’s title mirrors the syndicated newspaper column Robinson wrote. 

Robinson certainly led an interesting life; she was born in a small town in the Northern California frontier, then moved across the country solo to become a teen bride to a wealthy Vermont widower.  The marriage was loveless and rather contentious, but Robinson devoted herself to the care of their asthmatic son, moving back to the Western US with her new love interest (who frankly seemed a downgrade from her husband, to whom she was still legally married) and her son in tow.  Robinson dreamed of becoming a writer and illustrator, and despite challenging economic circumstances (Robinson herself worked as a miner during this time!), managed to get several stories and columns published.  When her second relationship dissolved, she found herself back in Northern California and successfully pitched several newspaper columns and recurring features aimed variably at children, homemakers, the unlucky in love, and general audiences.  At her career peak in the mid-1920s, her best-known column, “Listen, World!” was earning her $20,000/year in syndication.   

Unfortunately, Robinson’s life didn’t have a fairy tale ending despite her unprecedented entrepreneurial and financial successes – her still-frail son died in his 20s, and Robinson herself continued to struggle personally and romantically.  Her writing career ended around 1940 when Robison was in her late 50s, though Robinson lived another decade and a half after that.

This is a well-researched book, though I did feel the pacing dragged, particularly through Robinson’s early adulthood before she reached her career height in her 30s and 40s. 

Further reading: late 19th century/early 20th century American women who broke barriers in the working world:
The Editor: How Publishing Legend Judith Jones Shaped Culture in America by Sarah Franklin
Winning the Earthquake: How Jeannette Rankin Defied All Odds to Become the First Woman in Congress by Lorissa Rinehart
Claire McCardell: The Designer Who Set Women Free by Elizabeth Evitts Dickinson
Becoming Elizabeth Arden: The Woman Behind the Global Beauty Empire by Stacy Cordery

My statistics:
Book 45 for 2026
Book 2351 cumulatively

[Fred Alexander · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed the book. The story was well researched, presented in an interesting way, and is inspiring.
It sounds like Elsie was one of the early personal advice columnists. That had to take a lot of
courage.

[Felice Cohen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved this book! Remarkable story of a remarkable woman.

[Kristi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Elsie Robinson was one of the most-read newspaper columnists of the mid-twentieth century. She believed in gender equality and spoke out against racism.
I am so glad her story is being told in this book.

Favorite Elsie quotes:
"Goodness, though it promised halos in heaven, certainly didn't offer a lively gal many breaks on earth. Bad Women, on the contrary, had practically unlimited freedom and fun."

"And on what, may I ask, do you base your supremacy? You didn't choose your ancestors - unless biology is entirely cockeyed. You happened to be born white, and that is no great feat. You could have put aside ignorance and prejudice and contemptible snootiness and have given your lives for unity. But you weren't big enough. You weren't brave enough."

[Shanin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wow, what a human. She certainly can teach readers a lot about how to really love.

[Kushiel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Definitely learned something new! This book is about the life of a forgotten female columnist who broke away from traditional societal expectations. This reading is a little dry, but definitely worth the read. Highly suggest reading the epilogue. It goes over how Elsie Robinson was forgotten from history even though her works were so widespread.

[Jes Tyler · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a well-researched and well-told story of Elsie Robinson. It is fitting that a writer and newspaperwoman should have, finally, such a tribute.

[Emma · Rating 3 out of 5]

The description of this book really drew me in; the most influential columnist you’ve never heard of? Just my cup of tea.
The book itself was well written, but the story was ultimately disappointing. The prolog (and later the epilogue)teases Robinson’s activism in her columns including feminism, racism, and anti semitism. However, the book itself barely touches on these. In fact, the entire story takes place before the tragic death of her son at 21, after which she wrote her own memoir. I’ll definitely check out Elsie’s memoir because she sounds fascinating, but this book left me wanting so much more.

[Reader50 · Rating 4 out of 5]

I can't remember how I became aware of this book and as I've recently come to enjoy audio versions of memoirs and biographies, I was excited to borrow the audio book from my local library. Elsie Robinson's life was fascinating, such a shame that her story and accomplishments have been little known, even left in obscurity.

Elsie was born at the end of the 19th century in CA. She saw no future in her small town with any of the local eligible men and became attracted to a visiting widower from a New England upper class family. After moving to Vermont and marrying the widower, she found herself with no personal support system, no family nor friends, and endured years of unhappiness and isolation from her husband who succombed again to his family's conservative mores which he abandoned while in CA. Elsie returned to CA, a single mother without financial support and a severely asthmatic son.

To support herself and son, she worked in any capacity including in a mine and doing the same heavy physical labor as the men. During her years in VT, she wrote some children's stories for a local newspaper and found she had a talent for writing which she enjoyed. During these struggling years of barely earning sufficient means for survival, she continued to write in the evenings and and submitting stories to local newspapers, eventually becoming the most successful female journalist in the Hearst organization.

Elsie Robinson's story was an uplifting one, perfectly timed for enjoying at the beginning of a new year. Her determination, perseverance and endurance was the epitome of optimism and I found her story inspiring and motivating. She was a loving, devoted mother and accomplished author and journalist whose accomplishments need to be more widely recognized.

[Kate · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm grateful this biography of Elsie Robinson has been written. What an incredible woman who lived through the highest of highs and lowest of lows. Writing saved her life...and in turn her own writing had a huge impact on the masses.

She was so far ahead of her times, especially in terms of speaking out about women's rights. This book does a great job illustrating how in the late 19th and early 20th centuries women were severely constrained...but Elsie broke free.

As a native Californian who has a good deal of interest in the Gold Rush era, I can't believe I'd never heard of her. That Elsie Robinson worked in the mines is just one of the juicy stories in this book that brings to life a woman no one should ever forget.

[Gina · Rating 4 out of 5]

She is an interesting historical figure. I love the writing style because you feel like you are following a character in a novel. Wow- what a history lesson about women from clothing, dating, and households to childbirth.

[Caroline · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a fascinating book about a woman writer I’d never heard of—so that makes it a bit enraging, too. Elsie Robinson was ahead of her time, and so modern in her perspective on working mothers, feminism, sexuality, and writing as both a creative outlet and financial necessity.

Her story is beautifully served by the collaborative writing team of Julia Scheeres and
Allison Gilbert, who paint a vivid picture of her life and her times, interweaving so many of Elsie’s own words that you get a strong sense of this dynamic woman as both a devoted mother and terrific writer.

Born in Benicia, CA, Robinson moved to New England to marry (only after a year of boarding school, mandated by her in-laws, to smooth her rough California edges), and then eventually, dissatisfied in the marriage and her only child suffering from asthma, left her husband to return with her son to California.

Eventually she moved to Hornitos and found work in a gold mine: “I had crossed the wall—left woman’s world behind me. “Now I was with men… always with men… only men. I heard no other voices… knew no other problems.”

She met Luola, a black tavern keeper who gave Elsie her first typewriter, and she started to type up and illustrate the stories she told to entertain her son. Of this time, she writes “I 'rassled' with words, stopped to cook a rabbit—wrote again—stopped to kill a rattlesnake—wrote again—stopped to mend overalls or work out a Boy Scout knot—went on again, while the stars flared and faded… and the morning light flushed, then flamed—" And this is all after a day underground, wielding a pick axe in the mine.

I will never again complain about not having enough time or proper conditions to write.

From publishing children’s stories, she pitched a column to the Oakland Tribune until eventually she was “turning out four bylines—her eight-page Aunt Elsie’s Magazine, which appeared on Sundays; her “Cheer-Up” and “Cry on Geraldine’s Shoulder” columns, which received a half-page daily and two pages on Sundays; and her nationally syndicated, six-day-a-week “Listen, World!” column. She reached 20 million readers a day with lines like these:

Life didn’t stop being interesting for men, just because they were married. Men went on being other things besides husbands. Why must married women be only wives?

We are beginning to realize that it is as absurd to trust “mother instinct” in caring for children, as it would be to trust “aviator instinct” in flying a powerful plane.

You can’t pick your universe, nor elect your own boss for it, but you can pick your own viewpoint.

Is your husband or your complexion growing dull? Let us then discuss the value of soft soap on complexions—and husbands.…

Sexism, carelessness (a failure to renew a copyright), and Robinson’s own lack of foresight and time to tend to her archives led her to be forgotten, so I’m glad this excellent book is available.

[Carolyn Lee Arnold · Rating 5 out of 5]

Take inspiration from a woman writer a century ago!
When we are tempted to think it is difficult to be an independent woman or a woman writer, this moving biography by best-selling author Julia Scheeres and award-winning journalist Allison Gilbert reminds us of how far we have come in 100 years. Through the rebellious eyes and life of Elsie Robinson, who chafed under her gender-related restrictions, we feel how much strength and perseverance it took to break free and succeed in a man’s world in the early 20th century.

Elsie Robinson bucked or worked around the restrictions of women’s lives and, after much harder work than any of us can imagine, succeeded in becoming one of the most powerful and prominent writers in America, the highest paid woman columnist in the Hearst empire. The authors bring Elsie to life with vivid scenes and quotes from her writing, and help us experience Elsie’s historical time and place by providing insights into the national, global, local, and social events that affected her. It’s a perfect biography, for we come to understand the person and the times. Elsie was inspiring because she succeeded despite her times.

At one point, Elsie survived by working with men in a sweltering gold mine 9 hours a day, walking 4 miles there and 4 miles back to her shack, where she cooked for her mentally ill companion and asthmatic son, helped with the son’s school work, cleaned up, taught herself to use a big clunky typewriter, and wrote stories to send out for publication until late at night. How many of us would attempt half of that?

Elsie’s response if anyone complained about not having the proper conditions for writing: “Proper conditions? I wonder what they are? I never have known them. How did I start writing? After everything else was done.”

Every step of Elsie Robinson’s life bumped up against either the restrictions around women’s lives in the early 20th century – having to marry, not being able to enjoy activities outside the home, not being employed in men’s jobs, or any jobs, having to stay home with a sick child— or the health care advances that would not be invented until mid-century – the inhalers and penicillin that would have eased her asthmatic son’s life. Her path was fraught with obstacles, even after Hearst finally paid her a decent salary. It was not an easy life, but it was a successful one, thanks to her near-herculean strength and persistence. And thanks to Scheeres and Gilbert, we can now celebrate and honor her. Brava to the authors for retrieving an incredible woman lost to history!

[Alger Smythe-Hopkins · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am so happy to have found this biography of this terribly tragic, but thoroughly astonishing woman. How on earth was she allowed to drop out of sight when so many mediocrities are remembered?

Born poor, married into New England old money, divorced and abandoned with a small and sickly child to drudge in a gold mine, Elsie still somehow found her way into a writing career that should be celebrated today. Instead, she died broke and was soon after forgotten.
One critique I have of this treatment is that it is almost entirely an expansion upon Elsie's own work, taking a deeper dive into I Wanted Out!, turning up more details on subjects and moments that Elsie had glossed over or only mentioned in passing. These expansions are interesting, but not always needful. As with other biographies that crib like this off of a single source, the amount of detail drops off rapidly once they get past the source, and so we end up not knowing very much at all about the final twenty years of Elsie's life, which Elsie most likely viewed as a post-script herself. Yet, there still must have been a life lived in there. Was Elsie simply a workaholic who made poor relationship choices this entire period? Her conflict with the Chief (W.R. Hearst) suggests that she was still pugnacious in her own interests long after her son's death. It isn't even clear how that dispute ended, although it seems Elsie won since she kept working. Why can't we see more details of that stage of her life as well? For once, this is a biography that ended too soon, and while I was shattered by her losses I wanted to spend more time with this unique woman.
An absolutely astonishing history of a remarkable life.

[Cara Wood · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful testament to the 40-year career of the most widely read female columnist of the early 20th century, this biography is a loving tribute to Elsie Robinson and a rallying cry for better women's history and workplace rights. The authors incorporate so much of Elsie's writing into this book, that many times it feels like getting to read her personal diary: 

"I have known a diversity of people in my day. miners and stevedores, writers and taxi drivers, janitors and jailbirds, deacons, murderers, gentlemen of leisure and the more obvious kind of pickpockets, gamblers ... whatever the surface, something was there, unspoiled. And always sooner or later, that beauty spoke. "

"I made camp with a murderer one night...After chow we sat by the fire and talked. He told me about the murders. There were five of them. He told me about his dog, and the best time to plan sweet peas, and a fishing trip he once took with his dad....after that I lay awake for awhile. I could hear the murderer snoring over behind the mesquite bush. He snored just like other men. I looked up at the stars. They blinked back at me - and they didn't blink a bit brighter at me than they did at the murderer. We both looked alike to the stars."

[Doug Lewars · Rating 5 out of 5]

*** Possible Spoilers ***

This is a biography although it was classed under History by OverDrive. I got the audio version because I wanted something to listen to while busy with other things. Before even starting, just the title and cover made me think I'd probably hate it and wind up rating it as a one. Instead, I thoroughly enjoyed it. I suspected it would be more left-wing feminist drivel but while it is the biography of a very strong woman, there is no whining, no preaching and no blaming a patriarchal society for all the problems in the world. True, Elsie Robinson had more than a few problems growing up in the late 1800s and early 1900s when opportunities for women were severely limited, but her approach was to work around them rather then throw a tantrum. Although biographical, it contains some interesting historical context to life in America at the turn of the last century. If you want to read a story about someone digging deep to overcome adversity, give this one a try.

[Ann · Rating 5 out of 5]

I just finished this book and can't stop thinking about it. I am enamored with Elsie and furious that she was almost forgotten. She wrote for every important newspaper for 40 years and yet she is all but forgotten. Kudos to the authors for their extensive research. She was only discovered when one of the authors found an Elsie Robison poem among her mother's belongings. When the authors started their research they found scores of seniors still holding on to their childhood prized from Elsie.

This book starts out with Elsie railing against Victorian mores as she is forced into marrying a wealthy Vermont widower upon high school graduation. She and her son eventually abandon him and move to the desert mining town of Hornitos where she begins trying to write while working in the gold mines. When her son reaches high school age she moves to San Francisco and is literally starving when she lands a job with the Oakland Tribune writing "Trestle Glen Secrets"(my neighborhood) along side L. Frank Baum's "The Wonderful Stories of Oz."

Her column is wildly successful and she is soon writing several advice columns. She is eventually hired by the Hearst Corporation and is read all over the country. Her autobiography was serialized and read by millions. Yet no one remembers a woman so ahead of her time.

I know we live in a misogynistic society but this is unreal. Male columnists are remembered and celebrated for much less than writing than Elsie produced. I want to thank these authors for bringing her to life.

[Kathy Thompson · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a fantastic book! The authors do a superb job bringing their subject Elsie Robinson alive to the reader with their writing and extensive research of not only her life, but the time period on what it meant for a woman who so wanted to live life to the fullest but be so constrained by social norms and expectations. Elsie Robinson was such a progressive in so many ways, she should be referenced more in history. I know I would have found her fascinating and inspiring if I would have learned about her in a history class back when I was in school. I hope this book can help correct that and that more people learn about Elsie Robinson's insistence on equality (for everyone), perseverance and the importance of self- actualization-- that a woman needed more than marriage and children to be happy (and as the authors established, Elsie so loved her son!), she believed a woman should be allowed to pursue her own passions and a career, as well -- very forward thinking in the early 1900s.

[Madelin · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’ve never been one to reach for biographies but my mom bought this for me for my college graduation and I’m so glad she did. Not only is this book so well written, it’s obvious that the authors went above and beyond in their research. It’s crazy how there are so many radical, revolutionary women throughout history that have been entirely forgotten. Reading this and learning about Elsie’s story was a further reminder of what a disappointment our education system is; “The overarching focus on military, political, and economic history marginalizes the areas where women have been the most active and powerful, including civil rights, labor rights, immigration, arts, and journalism.” I wish I had known about her sooner. Elsie was truly a woman before her time; “The only person who fails in life, is the person who doesn’t dare to live it.”

[Margo Kirwin · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don’t usually come out here and do reviews. And I will skip the synopsis since you can read that anywhere. In short this is a great book, beautifully written and a lost piece of history we very much need to know about. She pushed every boundary, mostly out of necessity because as a woman her time left her with so few choices.

Yet she was extraordinary by any measure so her abilities could not be missed by those she sort to find work with and later, an illustrious carrier in writing fiction poetry and illustrating her own work.

It was a path with heart for the book writers to, who had to research through archives of paper and microfiche. They seamlessly blended some of her journal entries with their own biographical and historical telling of her and her times.

I wish we saw more history and biographies of women like this.

[Kristin Brandt · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read a lot of bios and particularly enjoyed this one! Authors Gilbert and Scheeres did an excellent job with their research, finding critical threads to the life of an extraordinary woman who had been all but lost to history.

This is the amazing story of Elsie Robinson as she develops her gifts as artist and author and carves a unique place for herself in the male-dominantes world of American journalism. Courageous, audacious, confident and so very inspiring.

The authors elegantly use Elsie’s own words to tell her story, you hear her distinct voice at your side. A quick and engaging read.

[Roberta Miceli · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wow! Thanks to Beacon Hill Books for being so busy last weekend that I was wedged into an aisle and looked at books I would not usually peruse. This book was outstanding ....such an amazing story about an intrepid woman whose moxie led her to an amazing career in magazines and newspapers.

It gave me a wake-up call about how history continues to "forget" stories of trailblazing women. And...it gave me a look into the straight jacket ways of New England Puritan society during it's day.

A huge thanks to the authors - Julia Scheeres and Allison Gilbert for digging into the research and telling Elsie's story.

[Enez Paganuzzi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fierce, feisty, fabulous, smart, sassy, sincere. Elsie experienced hardship yet was stronger because of it. She experienced sadness, grief, death yet realized the importance of feeling all emotions to understand the sweetness in life. She battled adversity in the workplace yet held her head high. I wish I could meet her…and say thank you for being so inspiring, for reaching for the stars, for making me see you create your own happiness. Elsie is an inspiration for us all. Cant wait to see the recognition she deserves…and I hope she gets it!!!! A shout out to my friend and coauthor Allison Gilbert. Your dedication, tenacity and writing can’t be beat. Go Elsie (and Allison) GO!

[Heather R · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a thoroughly enjoyable and heartfelt read! Getting to know Elsie Robinson, her incredible moxie, her tireless drive as well as her capacity for empathy was a journey worth taking. A relative unknown today, Elsie was the most popular columnist of her time, yet her style of writing and boldness is very relatable today. I felt privileged to discover her ups and downs, her wild and wise optimism, her tragedies and triumphs. What an amazing life! She was one person (besides my own family) who I would love to sit down and talk with; a person to admire yet so very down to earth. I highly recomend you read this book!