We have long marveled at Ellen Bravo’s ability to balance the demands of being a feminist activist and author. Her books are driven by the same social change values and objectives that have fueled her many decades of organizing for justice and equity for women and families. She is the former director of 9to5 –yes, the group that inspired the movie– and co-founder of Family Values @ Work, a successful network of state coalitions working for family-friendly policies that have secured locally mandated paid family and medical leave for over 55 million people across the country. While working more than full-time leading these groups, she also wrote five books! Her most recent novel is Standing Up: Tales of Struggle, co-authored with her husband Larry Miller. In it they share enlivening stories about “regular people” who work hard while “caring for kids, holding relationships together, and wrestling with multiple forms of oppression” and still manage to “stand up, slow down, form unions, leave an abusive relationship, or just stir up good trouble.” Ellen, 78, recently chose to dedicate herself to writing full-time and is at work on a new novel. Pick up her latest book –it’s a great read!– or one of her earlier ones, and listen to our equally great conversation with this warm, brilliant, funny and big-hearted gender and racial justice champion.
For more information about Ellen, including upcoming book tour appearances, check her website. Standing Up: Tales of Struggle is available on Amazon, as are her earlier novel, Again and Again and her most recent nonfiction book, Taking On the Big Boys: Or Why Feminism Is Good for Families, Business, and the Nation.