Listen, World!: How the Intrepid Elsie Robinson Became America’s Most-read Woman

*Winner of the 2023 Northern California Book Award*
The first biography of Elsie Robinson, the most influential newspaper columnist you’ve never heard of

At thirty-five, Elsie Robinson feared she’d lost it all. Reeling from a scandalous divorce in 1917, she had no means to support herself and her chronically ill son. She dreamed of becoming a writer and was willing to sacrifice everything for this goal, even swinging a pickax in a gold mine to pay the bills.

When the mine shut down, she moved to the Bay Area. Armed with moxie and samples of her work, she barged into the offices of the Oakland Tribune and was hired on the spot. She went on to become a nationally syndicated columnist and household name whose column ran for over thirty years and garnered more than twenty million readers.

Told in cinematic detail by bestselling author Julia Scheeres and award-winning journalist Allison Gilbert, Listen, World! is the inspiring story of a timeless maverick, capturing what it means to take a gamble on self-fulfillment and find freedom along the way.

Julia Scheeres is the author of the New York Times–bestselling memoir Jesus Land and the award-winning A Thousand Lives: The Untold Story of Jonestown. She lives in Northern California.

Allison Gilbert is an award-winning journalist and author of numerous books including Passed and Present and Parentless Parents. She lives outside New York City.