In 1967, Trudy Knowles left her small town in Kentucky headed for Lake Forest College near Chicago. She attended class, studied, joined softball games on the campus green, hung out in Hixson Lounge, played her guitar under the trees, and became involved in the anti-war movement. In the spring of 1970, Trudy attended the college’s study-abroad program in Athens, Greece, intending to return for her senior year. Instead, she embarked on a trip around the world, traveling with a friend in a VW van. When the van was sold in Kabul, Afghanistan, they continued their travels for two more years using public transportation. The trip transformed her life.

Trudy completed her degree at Centre College in Kentucky, earned her master’s degree at the University of Nebraska at Omaha, and obtained her doctorate at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. She was a professor of education for twenty-five years, retiring in 2016.

Trudy is the co-author of What Every Middle School Teacher Should Know, and author of The Kids Behind the Label: An Inside Look at ADHD for Classroom Teachers, Radishes and Red Bandanas, “The Miracle Message” published in Chicken Soup for the Soul: Miracles and the Unexplainable, and numerous professional journal articles.

As an activist since the early sixties, Trudy still protests, marches, demonstrates, writes letters, and speaks out for peace and social justice. Her life motto comes from a bumper sticker she saw in upstate New York one day, “Dance with Reckless Abandon.” She does that every day.

Trudy lives in Westfield, Massachusetts, with her husband. She has five children and four grandchildren who are the lights of her life.

Q1 – What is the name of your latest project? Tell us more about why you embarked on this project. If a writer, share your synopsis.

Radishes and Red Bandanas is a story of a young woman’s journey through the chaotic years of the late 1960s. In the early 1980s, I was working with a group in Tennessee called Cumberland Countians for Peace. I got thinking about how I marched and protested throughout the sixties for peace in Vietnam. Here we were, a decade out from the Vietnam War and we were still marching, still speaking out for peace. I also realized that during the 60s, every male of my generation had Vietnam looming over them. As a woman, I didn’t have to worry about being drafted into a war I didn’t believe in. I could speak and protest and demonstrate but I would never be sent to Vietnam. And yet, because the war impacted every male that I knew, it impacted me. I wanted to tell the story about how a war destroyed a generation and I wanted it to come from a female perspective. The book focuses on the importance of speaking out against injustice even when it’s hard.

The struggle for justice continues. Did what we do in the 1960s matter? Things haven’t changed. To address the current social justice issues, I added vignettes about the Occupy Wall Street movement that occurred forty years after my main character graduated from college.

Here’s the blurb from the back of the book:

Radishes and Red Bandanas is a work of historical fiction set in the late 1960s with the backdrop of the Vietnam War protests. As Becky sits with her son in a courtroom following his arrest during Occupy Wall Street, she thinks about her life at college forty years earlier. It’s 1967 and widespread resistance against the Vietnam War rocks college campuses. Becky abandons the security of her small Kentucky hometown to spend the next four years at Lake Forest College near Chicago.

In this coming-of-age novel, Becky confronts the political and cultural turmoil of the times—protests, demonstrations, occupations, riots, assassinations, drugs, and free-love. As a woman, she will never have to fight in a war she doesn’t believe in, but the draft comes to her in its hunger for her brothers, friends, and lovers. She watches their agonizing decisions—go to Canada, jail, or Vietnam. Time and again, Becky finds love and loses it.

Forty years later, Becky’s son follows in her footsteps. Interspersed throughout the novel are vignettes of her son’s protests and arrests during the Occupy Wall Street Movement as he fights for justice in the streets of New York City.

Radishes and Red Bandanas is a story about the redemptive power of love to heal in times of tragedy and about the importance of speaking out no matter the cost.

Q2 – What inspired you when you encountered struggles along the way?

I’m not sure if this question refers to struggles with writing or struggles in life. I guess the answer to both would be the same. There is one overriding focus in my life and that is family: my husband, children, and grandchildren, my siblings, their spouses, children, and grandchildren, and my parents when they were alive. I can always rely on the love of my family when the going gets tough. No matter what, they have always supported my journey. They are the most important thing in my life.

Q3 – Have you ever traveled as research for your work/project/story?

In about 1983, while writing the first draft of my story, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial was dedicated in Washington D.C. I felt it was important to visit the memorial. At the time, Vietnam vets were holding a 24-hour vigil at the Wall. There I met Micky Collins who walked the Wall with me and introduced me to the men he put in body bags as a medic in Vietnam. His story had a powerful influence on me. Some of his story is included in the book.

While in D.C. I also did research at the Library of Congress. This was long before internet research made it possible to find information from home. I spent hours in the LOC looking at old newspapers accounts of events from 1967-1971 related to the war.

Q4 – How has your lived experience influenced your work/project/story?

The answer to #9 responds to some of this question. Throughout my young life, I watched my parents involved in peace and social justice work, so it was a natural move for me to get involved. I went to school in Chicago and participated in many of the historical events that are talked about in the book. I have protested, demonstrated, marched, been jailed, written letters, and organized ever since.

This story comes out of my belief that we can change lives one day at a time, one demonstration at a time, one letter to the editor at a time.

Q5 – What do you want readers to take away from your work/project/story?

It’s important to speak out for what you believe even when it’s hard, even when you don’t think it will make a difference. I just saw a clip of a documentary about the Vietnam Moratorium marches in Oct., Nov., and Dec. of 1969. Those marches had such an impact that it moved President Nixon away from the idea of using nuclear bombs in Vietnam. Even when you don’t think your voice matters, it does.

I also want people to understand how powerful the love of friends and family are, that love can transform us in times of tragedy and grief.

Q6 – Do you believe books can inspire social change? How?

In 1963, when I was 13 years old, I saw on the news that four young girls had been killed by a bombing in the basement of their church in Birmingham. I sat on my bed that night and said, “I need to write this story so that we remember what happened.” That’s the first time I realized the importance of the written word to tell an important story. I only wrote two pages, but I never forgot sitting on my bed, thinking about those four young girls.

Can books inspire social change? Absolutely. It can often be subtle but the messages from books become part of our lives. For example: So many of Dr. Seuss’s books give a message. The Lorax is a beautiful story about caring for our environment. If you ask a 5-year-old what the story is about, they will say, “They cut down the trees and now the boy has seeds to plant new trees.” They respond to the story literally. But in their minds, they carry with them the deeper meaning of the story. It subtly becomes part of their belief system. That’s why it’s so important to read these beautiful stories to kids.

The Dr. Seuss story, “Yertle the Turtle” is about a turtle that demands that all the turtles stack up so he can be as high and rule over everything. One turtle at the bottom burps, starting a revolution among the turtles. A young person would say the story is about a turtle who wanted to see everything. What they carry with them, without even knowing it, is the idea that it takes one person speaking out to begin to make change.

Adults also are inspired by books. I never say in my book, “Speak out against injustice.” Or “Rely on your friends and family when the going gets tough.” And yet, that is the message that people will take with them.

Q7 – Anton Chekhov said, “The world is, of course, nothing but our conception of it.” What is your opinion of this statement? How does it coincide or conflict with your perspective of the world?

I’ve often heard that one’s perception is their reality. I know that people perceive the world through their lived experiences. We all perceive a situation through a specific lens. We observe a fight in a parking lot. If I’m the mother of one of the people fighting, I see this fight in one way. If I’m a friend, or wife, or brother, etc. I see it differently.

Recently, however, I have come to believe that just because someone has a specific “conception” of the world, doesn’t mean that this conception is real or true or accurate. Their perception may be their reality, but it may not be true.

So – someone might say to me, “That’s the way I conceive of this situation.” And I might say back, “While that may be true, your conception of the situation is based on faulty information, on lies.”

I see the world through the lens my parents gave me—that all people all valuable, that whether you are a Christian or not it is important to feed the hungry, heal the sick, visit the imprisoned, welcome the immigrant, clothe the naked, that joy is abundant, that love is powerful.

There are those who believe that it’s okay for people to die if they can’t afford health care, that the poor simply need to work harder, and I can go on and on. That is their world, their conception of their world. Is their conception accurate?

This question challenges my beliefs about the world.

Q8 – What personal experience had the greatest influence on your worldview?

My parents were fierce defenders of peace and racial justice. I saw both my mother and my father speak out. My father was part of a group of college professors who integrated the movie theater in my small Kentucky town in the early 1960s. They then went on to work on integrating the other businesses in town. My mother participated in grape and lettuce boycotts in support of Cesar Chavez and the migrant farm workers in California. Their lives were the greatest influence on my world view.

President Kennedy was assassinated during my freshman year in high school. Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy were assassinated my freshman year in college. Those two events were the beginning of two milestone educational experiences and shaped how I saw the world. It changed how I viewed the world. It wasn’t so bright and shiny anymore.

In 1967, during the height of the anti-war and civil rights movement, I went to a college 30 miles north of Chicago. Growing up in the 60s, with those two movements, radicalized me and made me realize that speaking out is important.

Years later, I found a liberty-head dime while digging in the garden. We were talking about dimes at the dinner table. One of my kids asked who was on the dime now and I said Roosevelt. I went on to say that when President Kennedy was assassinated my father told me he hadn’t been that shocked since the death of Roosevelt. My son said, “Why would he be shocked? It was just an assassination.” I realized that the world my children were growing up in was a completely different place than the world I grew up in.

I also have to say that traveling around the world from 1970-1972 had a profound effect on my worldview.

Q9 – What perspectives or beliefs have you challenged in your work/project/story?

The only belief that challenged my story was, “I’m not creative. I don’t write fiction. My sister is the writer. Not me. I’m not as creative as my sister. Or my brothers. They are the creative ones. My one brother is a dancer, the other an actor/director/writer. I’m just a college professor.”

It was when I said to myself, “I don’t care,” that I began to trust the muse within and write fiction.

Q10 – How do you see the relationship between writing and culture? How about the boundaries between fiction and reality?

I often heard that if you write something enough, people begin to believe it as truth. Take for example the ride of Paul Revere. The story we believe is the one written in Longfellow’s “Paul Revere’s Ride.” Historically, the ride of Paul Revere was much different. But Longfellow’s writing changed the historical story.

That’s the danger in writing. It can change the way people understand their world. If the writing proposes lies and conspiracies, people can change the way they interact in the world to focus on those lies.

You have enough people writing about the dangers of Critical Race Theory, then you have a shift in cultural values from a certain group of people. On the other hand, Critical Race Theory as written can shape the culture of another group of people. Everything I write comes from what I know, the stories that have accumulated in my head for years, the events, the observations, what I’ve learned from reading. And so, the line between fiction and reality is a thin line and can be a dangerous line.

Q11 – Aldous Huxley said, “I wanted to change the world. But I have found that the only thing one can be sure of changing is oneself.” How have you changed throughout your creative process? How do you improve yourself every day?

It’s interesting to look back at my life and see those transforming events that changed me. Three decades ago I started going to a twelve-step program as my life was affected by someone’s drinking. Through working the twelve steps, I learned to stay out of other people’s business and to take responsibility for the only thing I can take responsibility for and that is myself. I work that program every day, giving people the dignity of living the life they chose without interference from me while always being ready to help when asked or needed.

I made a choice to be happy. I make a choice of radical acceptance of things not in my control (which is pretty much everything but me). I am 73 years old and am still working on it.

I focus on myself but that doesn’t mean that I ignore the world. It is only through taking care of myself that I can have an impact in the world.

Q12 – To what extent can fiction affect or improve the developments in science and technology in human life? What about religion and politics?

Years ago I would have said that fiction plays a large role in melding together ideas about life outside of books, whether it’s science, technology, religion, or politics. I’ve become much more cynical. The answer to #11 touches on this somewhat.

Q13 – Eckhart Tolle said, “Awareness is the greatest agent for change.” In your opinion, what is the next step and how can writers affect this?

In my twelve-step program we talk about the three As. Awareness, Acceptance, and Action. Writing the truth can lead to acceptance. But you might ask, Who’s Truth? That’s a valid question. I do believe there are universal truths in the world. For example: Every human being deserves dignity and the right to live a life free from fear. Every human being deserves food, shelter, health care, love, companionship. Racism, homophobia, misogyny, religious intolerance, all exist. Everyone has a right to live a life free from those. Those are the universal truths.

Writers who tell the truth can change hearts and minds. Unfortunately, writers who lie also change hearts and minds.

Q14 – Intolerance and divisiveness are prevalent across the globe. Our voice may not be loud enough to right every wrong, but it is enough to make a difference one person at a time. Small acts move mountains. What one thing would you ask your audience to do to help inspire social change?

Know that your voice matters so use it.

Q15 – Pick 1-3 social issues that are most important to you. Explain why you picked these and how we can help raise awareness/impact change.

Of course it’s hard to pick only three. Poverty, homelessness, war, greed, fascism, lack of health care, homophobia, transphobia, religious intolerance, and I could go on and on. But if you make me choose three, I would say. 1). The abolition of nuclear weapons. 2). Climate change. 3). Racial justice.

Nuclear weapons and climate change can actually destroy the planet as we know it. When the U.N. passed the Treaty on the Abolition of Nuclear Weapons, I had hopes.  Since then, I have been on the board of nuclearban.us, working to get the treaty ratified throughout the world, to get cities and organizations to divest from companies that produce and support the production of these weapons. The treaty has been signed by 91 countries. It has been ratified by 68 countries. The treaty entered into force on January 22, 2021. Of course, none of the countries with nuclear weapons have signed the treaty.

I am simply tired and appalled that people continue to judge people according to their skin color. And the climate is dying. I’d like my grandchildren and great-grandchildren to have a planet worth living on.

What can we do about these issues: speak out, write letters, contact local and national politicians to pass policies, march, demonstrate.

One of the heroes of my life was Frances Crowe who died at the age of 100. A local peace activist, she was a draft counselor during the Vietnam War, helping more than 2,000 young men apply for conscientious objector status. She was arrested many times for civil disobedience actions, the last time when she was 98. When asked how many times she had been arrested, she said, “Not enough.”

She’d say to me, “Trudy, we must . . .” (fill in the blank: “work with mass transit to provide free bus passes to the homeless so they can get to work,” “get Democracy Now on your local radio station,” “speak out against the use of nuclear power,” “stop these wars in the middle east.”) She’d act, march, sit down, get arrested. Usually, because of her age, charges were dropped. She’d tell me, “I don’t want the charges to be dropped. I want to go to trial. I want people to hear what I have to say.”

I miss the influence she had on my life and strive to think and be more like her.

Q16 – Maya Angelou said, “I did then what I knew how to do, but now that I know better, I do better.” We have all made choices that we regret. We are all flawed humans. Together, we are experiencing this human story unfolding. Share a transformative experience where you learned from a mistake. How do you actively choose to make better choices?

How does one look at 73 years of life and choose one transformative experience. And what is a mistake? Edison tried almost 1,000 times before being successful with the light bulb. I would not call any of those 1,000 times mistakes. All those experiments showed him what didn’t work and led to the final success. So, the experience I am going to describe wasn’t a mistake. But it did change me.

I traveled the world for 2 ½ years with a sexy, risk-taking, Frenchman. I learned a lot from those 2 ½ years. When I got pregnant, I realized that I did not want that person to help me raise this child. I was stuck in France with no money and wrote a letter to a man who had been a Brother in the Catholic church and married a former nun. He sent me a plane ticket and some money and said, “Put bitterness aside, say your good-byes, and come on home.” His act of love for me changed my life. I came home, gave birth, finished college, went on to graduate work, etc. That baby is now 50. She transformed me.

I have never forgotten his kindness to me. He never asked for his money back. Instead, he met me at the airport and embraced me. 

Life is a random series of events. We get to choose how we interact with those events. I work my 12-steps daily, focusing on myself and the choices I make. And I soak in the love of my family.

Q17 – Challenge readers and listeners with action steps to increase engagement with identifying hashtag and @mention.

I have no idea what this means so all I’ll say is #overseventy.

Connect with Trudy Knowles

An author is only as good as her audience. Support this amazing writer by connecting with her and checking out her books.

Website – https://www.trudyknowles.com

Books 2 Read – https://books2read.com/u/m0EBa0

Amazon –

Barnes & Noble – https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/radishes-and-red-bandanas-trudy-knowles/1142265383?ean=9798986724805

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