A self-help guide for misfits

When Dotty Oliver started the Little Rock Free Press in 1993 (which later became the Arkansas Free Press in 1999 after being sued by then Gov. Mike Huckabee), she was a single mom with no money and a seemingly impossible dream: to create a public forum "for the rest of us."

Stripped of pretense and profit motivation, the Free Press quickly became a bastion for Arkansas' vibrant counterculture. Even now, 16 years later, the recently deceased "Freep" is still synonymous with the great American ideals it always embodied -- life, liberty, and (perhaps especially) the pursuit of happiness.

Oliver's new book, Mistress of the Misunderstood, is a collection of editorial columns and short stories from her years at the Free Press with a new story about the infamous lawsuit by then Gov. Huckabee.

Often hilarious and always irreverent, each page is an exciting glimpse into the mind of one of Arkansas' most notorious characters.

This truly is a book for everyone, from hippies to hookers to historians. With descriptions like "Gloria Steinem meets Hunter S. Thompson" and comparisons to Mark Twain's Roughing It, the "Mistress" is a self-help guide for misfits everywhere.

Mistress of the Misunderstood is now available locally at Gazebo Books in Eureka Springs and Nightbird Books in Fayetteville.