The writer, on how her dogs got their names:All of our dogs are rescue dogs. When we brought Bear home from the Humane Society, he was already named. We thought we’d change it, but we never did because he did indeed look like a bear.Lanier Scott Isom is an author and journalist living in Birmingham, Alabama, with her husband and their two children and rescued dogs, one bearded dragon, several Fire-bellied toads, and too many tadpoles to count. She is currently working on her second novel, and continues to write for a variety of publications. Her latest book is Lilly Ledbetter’s memoir, Grace and Grit: How I Won My Fight for Fairness at Goodyear and Beyond.
Right before Christmas last year we decided to find a dog for my daughter Frances, partly because our beautiful, sweet dog Sophie was declining; partly because my son Clint and Sparky had become a team and Frances wanted her own companion; and partly because she was having trouble sleeping in her room alone and we thought a dog would make her feel safe. It just so happens at Christmas we have elves who visit Frances. When we adopted Dakota, she wrote a note to the elves asking them whether she should name her new puppy Cassidy or Dakota. The elves chose Dakota....[read on]
About Grace and Grit, from the publisher:
The courageous story of the woman at the center of the historic discrimination case that inspired the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Restoration Act--her fight for equal rights in the workplace, and how her determination became a victory for the nation.Visit Lanier Scott Isom's website and blog.
Lilly Ledbetter was born in a house with no running water or electricity in the small town of Possum Trot, Alabama. She knew that she was destined for something more, and in 1979, Lilly applied for her dream job at the Goodyear tire factory. Even though the only women she’d seen there were secretaries in the front offices where she’d submitted her application, she got the job—one of the first women hired at the management level.
Though she faced daily discrimination and sexual harassment, Lilly pressed onward, believing that eventually things would change. Until, nineteen years later, Lilly received ananonymous note revealing that she was making thousands less per year than the men in her position. Devastated, she filed a sex discrimination case against Goodyear, which she won—and then heartbreakingly lost on appeal. Over the next eight years, her case made it all the way to the Supreme Court, where she lost again: the court ruled that she should have filed suit within 180 days of her first unequal paycheck--despite the fact that she had no way of knowing that she was being paid unfairly all those years. In a dramatic moment, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg read her dissent from the bench, urging Lilly to fight back.
And fight Lilly did, becoming the namesake of President Barack Obama's first official piece of legislation. Today, she is a tireless advocate for change, traveling the country to urge women and minorities to claim their civil rights. Both a deeply inspiring memoir and a powerful call to arms, Grace and Grit is the story of a true American icon.
Writers Read: Lanier Scott Isom.
Read--Coffee with a Canine: Lanier Scott Isom and Sparky, Dakota, and Bear.
--Marshal Zeringue
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