If your words had the power to change a law or an attitude…

In 2011 we began to formalize plans for a speaker’s bureau, through which our formerly incarcerated and younger writers might begin to share their stories with the goal of making a difference. As we move into 2012, we will be creating a more formal catalogue for those who wish to bring our speakers into community, school and advocacy venues. Meanwhile we invite you to sample a few of the stories that have made a difference this year.

To donate to our new speakers bureau, click here.

We invite you to sample a few of the stories that our younger writers have taken on the road.

Nancy Rich is a formerly incarcerated woman who is currently embracing the healing process of recovery, yoga and writing. She has read this Buttercups piece-- a testimony to the enormous power and beauty of what cannot be locked away—to students at St. Joseph’s College, Stony Brook University, Suffolk Community College, Queensboro Community College and to the staff of the member agencies of Nassau County Youth Board’s Herstory Training Consortium, and was featured in a special bilingual interview on Radio Fiesta, WBON where her words reached 120,000 listeners in three states. She hopes to use her personal experience to empower people to promote change by the use of consciousness and spirituality and service to others. To read her story, click here.

Jillien Joset Richards is one of 235 students from 80 different countries who participated in weekly “Our Story workshops during Stony Brook University’s Educational Opportunity Program’s four-week summer institutes in 2010 and 2011. This search for identity during an adolescence shadowed by lupus and kidney failure was read to a standing ovation at our 2011 Herstory Gala, becoming one of the most moving testimonies to the strength of the human spirit that Herstory writers of any age have produced. It was recently read at Hands Across Hempstead, a school/community coalition to provide services to young people. Click here to read her story.

Stephany Ramirez’s story “To Hold You in my Arms,” was written in Herstory’s “Writing for Immigrants Rights” workshop in partnership with SUNY Old Westbury’s Community Engagement and Partnership Center (CALL for Change). It speaks to the heartbreak of all immigrant children who are separated from their parents during their formative years, who must reunite as strangers years later, and is published both in our manual for younger writers and in our new bilingual anthology. Click here to read her story, excepted from Latinas Write/Escriben. Click here to listen to an interview with Stephany in Spanish broadcast on Radio Fiesta, WBON.

Anjelique Wadlington began writing with Herstory in 2004, in Riverhead Correctional Facility when she was 17 years old. The story we have reproduced here was commissioned by the Women on the Job Project of the Long Island Fund for Women and Girls, to illuminate what happens when women with felony records seek employment. Anjelique has accompanied us to meetings of the Coalition for Women Prisoners in Harlem, to presentations to students of criminology at numerous colleges and for human service providers, and has set up our “Herstory Inside Out Prison Project” Facebook page as point of connection for the women who started to write with us in jail. Please visit this page to read about the latest advocacy initiatives she is helping to spearhead. Click here to read her story.