Janis Kearney

Janis F. Kearney is an Arkansas‑born author, oral historian, and publisher whose work centers Black life, family, and memory in the Arkansas Delta. Born one of nineteen children to sharecroppers in Gould, Kearney went on to serve as personal diarist to U.S. President Bill Clinton from 1995 to 2001, the first and only such appointment in presidential history.

In 2001 she founded Writing Our World Publishing, and she is the founder and director of the Celebrate! Maya Project, dedicated to celebrating the life and legacy of Maya Angelou and to serving young people throughout Arkansas, with specific focus on the Delta region. Kearney is also the publisher of the historic Arkansas State Press, the weekly newspaper founded by Daisy Bates and her husband Lucious Christopher Bates.

At the Arkansas Folklife Festival, Kearney sits down for a conversation on the Common Threads Stage that traces her life from a sharecropping childhood in the Delta to a singular post in American history, and the writing and publishing work that has followed.