The Kids are All Right: A Memoir by Diana and Liz Welch with Dan and Amanda Welch

At the Texas Book Festival this past Saturday, I had the incredible honor of sitting on a panel with Nadine Eckhardt and Diane Wilson. These women are extraordinary, and the standing-room only crowd was proof.

I had never met Nadine, a beauty queen and a self-described “fifties girl,” who served on LBJs staff and managed to marry – and divorce – two of Texas’ most legendary scoundrels, but I had already had the pleasure of meeting Diane, a fourth generation shrimper and a gorgeous, incomparable force of nature, who single-handedly took down some legendary scoundrels of her own: Formosa Plastics, a corporate giant with a habit of dumping toxic waste in the waters of her hometown of Seadtrift, Texas, making her county the most polluted in the state.

Both Nadine and Diane have lived such bold, courageous lives, I couldn’t help but feel insignificant in their company. Not that they did anything to make me feel this way – quite the opposite, they were warm and funny and approachable, never once mentioning the fact that, well, I haven’t done much to better the world, like Diane has, or buck the staid social mores of my time and still rise to prominence in the mainstream, like Nadine. But being with these inspiring women also made me realize that both things are possible.  Not only possible.  Expected.

I haven’t read either of their books yet, but I did manage to wrangle a copy of each and get the gals to autograph them. Diane Wilson’s memoir has one of the best titles I’ve ever heard: Holy Roller: Growing Up in the Church of Knock Down, Drag Out; or How I l Quit Loving a Blue-Eyed Jesus. And I can already tell that Nadine’s Duchess of Palms is one of those too-short books that you have to read extra slowly because you really don’t want it to end.

Please support these amazing women: Read their life stories and allow their examples to inspire you as they have me.

And, if you haven’t seen this awesome movie, you should!