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HAWAII, August 27, 2026 — FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Authorized Biography of Arlinda Willis Published on Her 75th Birthday, the Anniversary of “I Have a Dream”

For Once in My Life chronicles a Black woman who spends a lifetime proving her worth to the world, her family, and herself, only to find that she is enough just as she is.

HAWAII — On what would have been her 75th birthday, and the 63rd anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech, the authorized biography of Arlinda Willis is published today. For Once in My Life: The Life of Arlinda Willis, written by Rob Cole and published by Margot Erickson Publishing, Inc., is the culmination of research and interviews that has taught a privileged white man about the disparities of the color and gender lines in America.

Arlinda Willis was born on August 27, 1951, in Toxey, Alabama, an agricultural turned textile manufacturing town. She came of age under Jim Crow, and joined the Great Migration that carried millions of Black Americans northward to reunite with her mother, who had abandoned her a decade prior. Arriving in Cleveland, Ohio, she vied for her mother’s attention by becoming a professional dancer on television, a model, and a pageant queen. She moved to San Francisco, got married and quickly divorced, and suffered through lackluster office jobs and a non-existant love life, using alcohol as a coping mechanism. A co-worker, Rob, helped her overcome alcoholism, only for her to develop cancer a few months later. Illness made professional achievement impossible and she discovered, at last, that the love and approval she had been seeking all of her life had been there with Rob. It was a personal achievement she could still win.

“Arlinda wanted to be recognized,” says Rob, who spent nearly two decades as Willis’s close friend and caregiver during her final years. “She asked me to write her biography so people would understand the barriers that Black women must scale for success.”

The biography spans six decades, taking us through the sharecropping community of the Alabama Black Belt; Cleveland during the Hough riots of 1966; the television stages of the hit-parade format Upbeat show; the corridors of the Thelen law firm in San Francisco; and the tumultuous final chapter of a woman learning that sometimes it is better to receive than to give. Along the way, Willis navigates medical racism, the institutional indignities that shaped the lives of Black women across the 20th Century, and the slow romantic burn of an interracial, inter-generational friendship navigated with humor and love.

Written by a British-born author who came to the story as an outsider and witnessed the last third of her life, For Once in My Life joins a small shelf of biographies that examine the resolve of a Black woman trying to navigate the American dream. It is written for anyone who has struggled to be seen.

BOOK DETAILS

Title: For Once in My Life: The Life of Arlinda Willis

Author: Rob Cole

Publisher: Margot Erickson Publishing, Inc.

Publication Date: August 27, 2026

Format: Trade Paperback and eBook

ISBN: [ISBN-13]

Price: $16.99 (print) | $8.99 (eBook)

Available: Amazon, IngramSpark, and bookshop.org

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Rob Cole is an author/publisher, and founder of Fellowship for Perpetual Growth, Hawaii’s first vegan animal sanctuary. Born in England, he spent nearly two decades as a close friend and caregiver to Arlinda Willis. For Once in My Life is his first book. He writes at robcoleauthor.substack.com.

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