• Skip to main content
  • Skip to footer

The Poetry Box

  • About
    • Mission
    • What’s in a Name?
    • Meet the Team
    • Contact
    • Privacy Policy
  • Contests & Awards
    • The Poetry Box Chapbook Prize 2025
    • 2024 Winners
    • 2023 Winners
    • 2022 Winners
    • 2021 Winners
    • 2020 Winners
    • 2019 Winners
    • 2018 Winners
    • Pushcart Nominees
  • Publishing
    • Poetry Books, Chapbooks, & Illustrated Collections
    • Testimonials from Authors
  • The Poeming Pigeon
  • Events
    • The Poetry Box – LIVE
    • Our YouTube Channel
    • All Events / Readings
  • Newsletters
  • Bookstore
    • All Books
    • Overstock Sale
    • Art Prints
  • Cart

Shawn Aveningo Sanders

Camas Library features
Shawn Aveningo-Sanders – Jan 4

January 2, 2023 by The Poetry Box Leave a Comment

Wed Jan 4, 2023⁠
6:15 – 7:45 PM⁠
• signups for open mic at 6:15⁠
• program begins at 6:30⁠
⁠
Camas Public Library (meeting room)⁠
625 NE 4th Avenue⁠
Camas, WA⁠
360-834-4692⁠
Host: Elmo Shade / elmo@elmoshade.com⁠
Sponsor: Ellen Miles (360) 834-4692 / library@cityofcamas.us⁠

⁠
About the Featured Poet:⁠

Shawn Aveningo-Sanders is the author of What She Was Wearing, an inspirational book of poetry/prose which reveals her #metoo secret—from survival to empowerment. Shawn’s work has appeared worldwide in over 160 literary journals and anthologies, including Calyx, Amsterdam⁠ Quarterly, American Journal of Poetry, Timberline Review, VoiceCatcher, and Poets Reading the News, to name a few. She’s a Pushcart nominee, Best of the Net nominee, co-founder of The Poetry Box press, as well as managing editor for The Poeming Pigeon. Shawn is a proud mother of three and shares the creative life with her husband, Robert.⁠
⁠

Open Mic Reader Guidelines:⁠

• Family Friendly Space / Please abstain from sexually explicit / inappropriate language⁠
• One page / One poem / Additional rounds depending on total # of readers⁠
• All ages are welcome / Youth poets encouraged⁠

Filed Under: past events, Readings & Events Tagged With: Camas Library Series, Elmo Shade, Reading, Shawn Aveningo Sanders

The Great Word Regatta (July 16, 2022)

June 29, 2022 by The Poetry Box Leave a Comment

flyer for event

 

The Great Word Regatta with Shawn Aveningo-Sanders, Michael Schein, Annie Lighthart and Matthew Brouwer

Saturday, July 16th 7pm

Rose City Book Pub
1329 NE Fremont St.
Portland, OR 97212

Come hear four restive writers bring life to hallowed Portland pub space through their wily and resplendent words. Opened by the briefest of open mics and followed by the pouring of libations. No cover, but please support your venue that so kindly hosts poets and other weirdos at no charge. Vaccination required.

Michael Schein wrote Liquid Perishable Hazardous (2019) (poetry), John Surratt: The Lincoln Assassin Who Got Away (2015) (historical), The Killer Poet’s Guide to Immortality by AB Bard (2012) (hysterical), historical novels Bones Beneath Our Feet (2011); Just Deceits (2005). Schein edited Poets UNiTE! The LiTFUSE Anthology (2015). His poetry appears in many journals and has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize three times. Schein is the founder of LiTFUSE Poets’ Workshop (litfuse.us), & has taught at Port Townsend Writers Conference, Write on the Sound, and elsewhere. Spirits inhabit earth and sky. Poetry is everywhere. Write on! michaelschein.com.

Shawn Aveningo-Sanders grew up in Missouri and after a bit of globetrotting finally landed in Portland, Oregon. Her recent chapbook, What She Was Wearing, tells her #metoo story that took 30 years to reveal. Shawn’s work has appeared worldwide in over 160 literary journals and anthologies, including Calyx, Amsterdam Quarterly, American Journal of Poetry, Timberline Review, VoiceCatcher, and Poets Reading the News. She’s a Pushcart nominee, Best of the Net nominee, co-founder of The Poetry Box press, as well as managing editor for The Poeming Pigeon. Shawn is a proud mother of three and shares the creative life with her husband, Robert. (More at RedShoePoet.com and ThePoetryBox.com)

Annie Lighthart is an Oregon writer and teacher who began writing poetry after her first visit to an Oregon old-growth forest. Poems from her books Pax and Iron String have been featured on The Writer’s Almanac and in various anthologies, including How to Love the World and Poetry of Presence. Annie’s work has been turned into music, used in healing and meditation projects in Ireland, England, and New Zealand, and has traveled farther than she has.

Blending music, poetry, wit and wisdom from his tangled poetic journey, Matthew Brouwer weaves together a unique and unforgettable poetry experience that has been charming audiences for over a decade. Bridging the worlds of spoken word and literary poetry, he has performed throughout the US and been featured in numerous literary, visual and performance arts showcases. He has a new chapbook The Gospel According to Matthew which you should purchase before it is buried forever by the sands of obscurity and time.

 

Filed Under: past events, Readings & Events Tagged With: Annie Lighthart, Matthew Lane Brouwer, Michael Schein, Reading, Rose City Book Pub, Shawn Aveningo Sanders

Head for the Hills f. Debbie Hall & Shawn Aveningo Sanders – Nov 24

November 19, 2020 by The Poetry Box Leave a Comment

Poster Designed by Dale Champlin

Head for the Hills
Hosted by Sherri Levine

Featuring Debbie Hall & Shawn Aveningo- Sanders

Tues, November 24, 2020
at 7 pm

via Zoom

To Join Zoom Meeting:
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85954776254?pwd=ZjUrMlBybWNPUXJielBMSHpyaUdoUT09

Meeting ID: 859 5477 6254
Passcode: 616315

About the Readers:

Shawn Aveningo-Sanders is the author of What She Was Wearing, an inspirational book of poetry/prose that reveals her #metoo secret—from survival to empowerment. Shawn’s poetry has appeared in, Amsterdam Quarterly, CALYX, American Journal of Poetry and Poets Reading the News, and many other literary journals. She’s co-founder of The Poetry Box® press, as well as managing editor for The Poeming Pigeon.

Debbie Hall is a psychologist, photographer and writer who lives in southern California. She is thrilled that her chapbook, Falling Into The River, won third place in the 2019 Poetry Box Chapbook Prize. She feels incredibly fortunate to have had the time and means to launch a second career as a poet after retiring from psychological practice. Debbie completed her MFA in 2017 at Pacific University in Forest Grove, Oregon.

~~~~~

Filed Under: past events, Readings & Events Tagged With: Chapbook Prizewinner, Debbie Hall, Falling Into the River, Reading, Shawn Aveningo Sanders, What She Was Wearing

Maggie & Shawn @ Broadway Books – POSTPONED

February 27, 2020 by The Poetry Box Leave a Comment

Event Poster: Shawn & Maggie at Broadway Books

Due to the COVID-19 Pandemic, this event has been postponed. Stay tuned for the rescheduled date this summer. 

Broadway Books to host Margaret Chula and Shawn Aveningo Sanders

Wed, Mar 25, 2020
at 7:00 pm

Broadway Books
1714 NE Broadway
Portland, OR 97232

Cover-Front-Shadow Man-webA poignant portrayal of love and forgiveness.

In Shadow Man, Margaret Chula brings her father out of the shadows where he had been since 1957, the day her mother packed their five children—all under the age of ten—into the car and drove away. Over the years, Margaret comes to accept the differences between a mother who wants China cups with saucers and a father who’s content with a Budweiser. Through writing about these awkward, often heartbreaking, interactions with her estranged father, she discovers that there’s more than one truth and that each of us must find our own.

 

Cover-WhatSheWasWearingThe #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.

Filed Under: past events, Readings & Events Tagged With: #MeToo, Broadway Books, Father-Daughter, Margaret Chula, Reading, Shawn Aveningo Sanders

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

December 8, 2019 by The Poetry Box 2 Comments


Annie Bloom’s to host Shawn Aveningo Sanders’ Book Launch

Wed, Jan 8, 2020
at 7:00 pm

Annie Bloom’s Bookstore
7834 SW Capitol Hwy
Portland, OR 97219
503-246-0053

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.

~~~~~

“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

Filed Under: past events, Readings & Events Tagged With: #MeToo, Annie Bloom's, Reading, Shawn Aveningo Sanders

Footer

Gold Logo  

Email:
Shawn@ThePoetryBox.com

Talk/Text:
(530)409-0721

The Poetry Box Newsletter Signup

Calls for Submissions, New Releases, Publishing Opportunities, Readings





CLMP logo
Copyright © 2025 The Poetry Box · Site Designed by Shawn Aveningo Sanders · Powered by Genesis