Originally published: November 13, 2022
Author of ‘Maid,’ who clawed way out of poverty, has message for Omahans
Until a few years ago, best-selling author Stephanie Land made a meager living as a housecleaner.
One company she worked for had a rule: Don’t leave anything behind. Make it appear that you never were there — “like some kind of ghost,” Land says.
She got to know some of her clients a bit, but with most people, she felt invisible.
And that’s how many in society view their neighbors who struggle with poverty, she says.
Land wrote “Maid,” a 2019 memoir about her life as a hardworking and poor single mom. It spent nine weeks on the New York Times list of best-selling nonfiction books and was the basis for a 10-episode series on Netflix that reached 67 million households.
She recently visited Omaha to speak at a meeting of the Tocqueville Society, a group for upper-level donors to United Way of the Midlands, which is currently in the middle of its annual campaign.
United Way President and CEO Shawna Forsberg told the group that Land — who struggled through hardship in the Pacific Northwest — had an important story to tell people in Nebraska.