Book Launch for “What She Was Wearing” – Jan 8

The #metoo story that took over 30 years to reveal.

Inspired by the countless number of women who are bravely opening up to share their truth, Shawn adds her voice to the fight against the oppressive, misogynic times we live in. It’s time to stop blaming the victim and to stop asking what she was wearing!  For Shawn, writing through the pain and sharing these poems has proven to be cathartic and even epiphanic at times. It is her hope this work can help women of all ages face and cope with their own traumas, while letting them know they can indeed heal and go on to enjoy loving, trusting relationships.

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“Dedicated “to those who have suffered in silence,” this book is a testimony to Shawn Aveningo Sanders’ courage. For thirty years, she kept a secret that verged on unraveling her, a secret so devastating she once attempted suicide. But here she transcends the traps of shame and self-reproach to confront—in a sequence of poems and epistolary prose—the four men who, as college fraternity brothers, raped her. Forced into silence for too long, women all over this world are now speaking out, saying #MeToo. What She Was Wearing is Sanders’ brave voice joining this transforming chorus.”

—Paulann Petersen, Oregon Poet Laureate Emerita