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Book Launch: Words for Women by Lori Heninger
A collection of poems about reclaiming language.
We’re thrilled to share the exciting news about Lori Heninger, a longtime PWN friend and poetry student. Lori’s new chapbook, Words for Women, won the Fall Chapbook Contest at Quillkeepers Press, and is available now wherever books are sold.
About the Book
Words for Women is a collection of poems about reclaiming language. From the ancient Greeks’ Harpy and Medusa to today’s Housewife and Drama Queen, words with negative or sexualized connotations have been assigned to women and pejoratively used by people to diminish women and girls. Words for Women takes those terms and, through the sound, rhythm, and intent of poems, demonstrates how they have been used and how they can be reclaimed as part of a journey to equity and wholeness.”
About the Author
Lori Heninger, Ph.D., is a poet, writer, and nonprofit executive. Her over 30 years of experience in US- and internationally-based humanitarian and development work has shaped her thinking and writing; it has allowed her to listen to and learn from others with vastly different experiences and cultures. Lori has had poems published in The Bangalore Review, The Dilydoun Review, Colossus: Body, and others. She is the author of Managing As Mission: Nonprofit Managing for Sustainable Change, and a book of poetry for children titled Outside/Inside/Outside. Lori has written for many academic publications and has published letters in The New York Times. Lori has written poetry starting at age 13 with an urban 4-H program and has never stopped; she is currently writing with Project Write Now in Red Bank, NJ. Lori lives in rural New Jersey with her husband, two dogs, a cat, and seven chickens. Lori graduated from Columbia University with a Master’s in Social Work and from City University with a Ph.D. in Social Welfare.
In the Acknowledgments
“This chapbook would not exist without Project Write Now in Red Bank, NJ, and instructor, mentor, and friend Laura Cyphers who teaches Poetry Intensive. Laura’s expertise and positive, kind critique style allowed me the spaciousness to feel like my writing mattered. I can’t thank her enough. My early readers, Lou Storey and Gay Norton Edelman, provided invaluable input and encouragement, and Jen Burger provided much-needed moral support. Thank you to Stephanie Lamb and the team at Quillkeepers Press for being excited about and publishing these poems. Finally, thank you to my family: Marc, Thea and Aidan. I love you all more than I can write.”
What People Are Saying
“Words for Women takes the reader on a wild ride from the language of derision to the messages that shout, “I will not be denied!” Required reading for anyone bold enough to look themselves in the mirror—and see who’s really there.” — Gay Norton Edelman, writing coach, spiritual life coach
“Harpy, Nag, Witch, Whore; harsh words for women that chafe, prickle and judge; Darling, Eve, Housewife, Mamma; words that may elevate women well beyond livable altitudes. Lori Heninger’s Words for Women makes bold use of these many labels, an itemized Sears catalog of WOMEN defined by a single word. Heninger’s progression of poems reveal these words aimed at women are also for them to own, embrace or reject, reconfigure and master. The poems in Words for Women, courageously with humor, fury and pathos, push past an imposed monotone singularity to command a chromatic wonder of possibility well beyond superficial designations.” — Dr. Lou Storey
Congratulations, Lori! We are so excited for you and grateful to have you in our writing community!
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