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Our Chelsea Green Authors : Diane Wilson

Diane Wilson

Diane Wilson, a fourth-generation shrimper, began fishing the bays off the Gulf Coast of Texas at the age of eight. By twenty-four she was a boat captain. In 1989, while running her brother's fish house at the docks and mending nets, she read a newspaper article that listed her home of Calhoun County as the number one toxic polluter in the country. She set up a meeting in the town hall to discuss what the chemical plants were doing to the bays and thus began her life as an environmental activist. Threatened by thugs and despised by her neighbors, Diane insisted the truth be told and that Formosa Plastics stop dumping toxins into the bay. Her work on behalf of the people and aquatic life of Seadrift, Texas, has won her a number of awards including: National Fisherman Magazine Award, Mother Jones's Hell Raiser of the Month, Lois Gibbs' Environmental Lifetime Award, Louisiana Environmental Action (LEAN) Environmental Award, Giraffe Project, Jenifer Altman Award, Blue Planet Award, and the Bioneers Award. She is co-founder of Code Pink and continues to lead the fight for social justice.

    Diane's Books

    An Unreasonable Woman

    A True Story of Shrimpers, Politicos, Polluters, and the Fight for Seadrift, Texas

    A lyrical, gripping narrative about one woman's fight to save her community, An Unreasonable Woman is an Erin Brockovich thriller with the literary richness of a Barbara Kingsolver novel.

    Holy Roller

    Growing Up in the Church of Knock Down, Drag Out; or, How I Quit Loving a Blue-Eyed Jesus

    In this rollicking memoir, Diane Wilson—a Texas Gulf Coast shrimper and the author of the highly acclaimed An Unreasonable Woman—takes readers back to her childhood in rural Texas and into her family of Holy Rollers.

    Diary of an Eco-Outlaw

    An Unreasonable Woman Breaks the Law for Mother Earth

    Diane Wilson delivers a no-holds-barred account of how she—a fourth-generation shrimper, former boat captain, and mother of five—took a turn at midlife, unable to stand by quietly as she witnessed abuses of people and the environment. Since then, she has launched legislative campaigns, demonstrations, and hunger strikes—and generally gotten herself in all manner of trouble.