‘We Are Resilient’ Is Theme for New Book from Mother-Daughter Team

A lively group of supporters gathered at the Grace Fisher Foundation Inclusive Arts Clubhouse last weekend to launch a new book, We Are Resilient. A compilation of Q&As about resilience and exercises and questions for the reader, the book was written by longtime Montecito resident Sissy Taran and her daughter Tiffany Howard, with assistance from Jodi Wilson, who moderated the event. 

All proceeds from sales of the book — featuring colorful cover art and inside illustrations by Grace Fisher — will go toward the work of the Grace Fisher Foundation, a nonprofit that works to empower individuals with disabilities by providing free access to music, art, dance, and other artistic programs. 

Fisher, who at age 17 was diagnosed with a rare polio-like illness that left her paralyzed from the neck down, is one of the 15 individuals interviewed about their personal struggles and journeys.

“If you have the will to survive and to move on, you really have no choice then to find things to get you up in the morning and to bring joy back into your life and stuff,” Fisher told the crowd. 

The book includes interviews with a wide swath of people, including former KEYT news anchor Paula Lopez, who survived a very public struggle with alcoholism, and Josie Martin, who hid in a Catholic nunnery in order to survive as a Jewish child during the Holocaust.

Mark Smith, a veteran whose mother was a sex worker and whose father was addicted to heroin, was asked what choosing happiness when faced with trauma looks like to him. He said, “It looks different every single day. I don’t really have a lot of good, easy days, but I choose to make the best of the days that I do have when folks are talking about resilience. I was thinking that I wish nobody had to have resilience. I wish that we could be in a place where that wasn’t something that would be beneficial for you. But then I also was like, we don’t have resilience. We don’t have to fight against something. We can’t grow; we can’t better ourselves.”

Andy Gilliland, an educator and an LGBTQIA+ community member, used her time at the mic to encourage the crowd to be their true selves. “To each and every single person in this room, I want to say that you’re not born to fit in; we are all born to stand out.” 

Additional interviewees include Stacie Bowen, Emma Solano, Stacy and Eric Baron, Chernor Diallo, Bob Ingram, Pamela Larsson-Toscher, (the late) Pat Clemens, Yolanda Nava, June Michaelsen, and Hank the Dog, as well as a discussion with Taran and Howard about their own relationship and what it was like to write the book together. —Leslie Dinaberg

We Are Resilient is now available at the Grace Fisher Foundation Inclusive Arts Clubhouse (120 S. Hope Ave., Unit F118) and online here.