Writers Night Out/In September 2021

Join us for Writers Night Out/In Open Mic on Tuesday, September, 7:00pm. Registration required. Register HERE. Our featured writer is Lanette Sweeney. If you have any trouble registering, contact Beth at: strawdogevents@gmail.com

Lanette Sweeney’s debut collection, What I Should Have Said: A Poetry Memoir About Losing A Child to Addiction, is being published by Kentucky-based Finishing Line Press in August of 2021. The book is divided into the stages of grief and features alongside her own poems 20 poems by Sweeney’s late son, Kyle Fisher-Hertz, who died of an overdose five years ago at the age of 26. Sweeney has two messages she hopes to share with the collection: first, that medication-assisted treatment saves addicts lives and should not be stigmatized, and second, that all of us can go on to have lives rich with joy and peace, even after surviving the most tragic losses. Sweeney’s work has been featured in many publications, including Rattle, Blue Collar Review, Please See Me, Amethyst Review, Silkworm (the annual publication of the Florence Poets Society, of which she is a member), and in several editions of McGraw Hill’s popular Women’s Studies anthology Women: Images and Reality. Sweeney has worked as a college teacher of writing and Women’s Studies at SUNY New Paltz, where she earned her degrees in Women’s Studies and English Literature, and as a college fund-raiser for Hampshire College. She also cocktail waitressed, sold real estate, and served as a United Way vice president. She is now a full-time writer thanks to her wife’s support.