Daisies Don’t Lie: Misadventures in Journalism
My life in journalism, which began covering a notorious, and until now unsolved murder in Connecticut, led to attempts on my life by cops in two states. You don’t have to be black to have cops wanting you dead!
I uncovered newspaper corruption wherever I went during my thirty-year career, and also found corruption and dysfunction in government at all levels. I ended up homeless, first on East Coast streets and later in New Mexico, due to the duplicitous nature of some of the papers I wrote for, which promise truth but give anything but.
Part I details my poisoning at the hands of constabularies and others in Louisiana, after I exposed an until now unpublished account of a massacre of black soldiers in 1942, which was covered up by the Army and my newspaper.
Part II describes homelessness in detail from a first-hand perspective, both on the East Coast and in New Mexico, and it features columns I published while on the streets.
Part III describes the effort of Santa Fe cops to eliminate me permanently after I’d become a thorn in the sides of corrupt officials and newspapers by filing forty-odd lawsuits.
I must be a cat in disguise, since I wrote for newspapers in at least nine states and am still alive to tell the tale. I hope this book will precipitate change in journalism, the love of my life.
Girl Flying Kite: Poems
The absolutely stunning poetry collection Girl Flying Kite: Poems consists of forty-
two poems written by an award-winning writer.
Nancy Louise Lewis features poems that came from a childhood spent in Appalachia
and her other life experiences. She deals with sexual abuse, questions pre-conceived
ideas about the world around us, and experiments with language in her works.
She says, “Many of the poems have won awards, and I wanted to collect the best of
my work into one volume. More to come.”
The first poem in the collection, and the title of her book, Girl Flying Kite, describes
the moment a nuclear bomb exploded over Nagasaki, Japan, during World War II.
Her poem begins:
We have to imagine
she had flaws, the girl
whose shade is blasted forever
into Nagasaki stone. She was doubtless
less beautiful than the outline
suggests.
It ends:
Seen from far above the earth, the mushroom
cloud containing the molecules
of the girl must have looked
like a giant knob opening
the door to a roomful of human horrors,
lives no more than scraps of paper
to be wadded up and tossed
into a corner trash basket.
Her words are poignant, powerful, and most importantly, unforgettable.
About the Author
Now retired, award-winning newspaper journalist and college professor Nancy Louise Lewis lives in Connecticut. She is CEO of her nonprofit, Advocacy Unlimited, which helps deserving litigants afford an attorney to access the court system. This is her first book.