Laureate Writers Series Presents Poet Nancy Hengeveld
Tuesday | March 5 | 7 pm
Blue Heron Coffeehouse | 162 W 2nd St.
Preston Poet Nancy Hengeveld To Read from her Prize-Winning Debut Book
As part of the continuing Laureate Writers Series, poet Nancy Hengeveld will read from her recently published book Petrichor, winner of the 2022 Barbara Stevens Poetry Book Award sponsored by the National Federation of State Poetry Societies. The presentation will take place at 7 pm on March 5, 2024 at the Blue Heron Coffeehouse, 162 W 2nd St., Winona. The reading is free and open to the public and will be followed by a book signing and open mic.
Nany Hengeveld grew up on a farm in southwestern Minnesota and attended Dordt College, where she was encouraged by a professor to continue writing poetry. She left college in her junior year, married, had four kids, and lived the itinerant life of an Air Force wife for several years. Her husband quit the Air Force to pursue a career as a nurse anesthetist at the Mayo Clinic but developed an addiction to fentanyl and his erratic behavior led to a split in their marriage. Then Nancy was a single mother with four kids. She completed a B.S.T. in English and M.S. in Counseling at Winona State, then worked as a licensed psychologist and served as adjunct faculty at Winona State’s Counselor Education program and in the Psychology Department at Rochester Community and Technical College. Nancy served on the editorial board of the Green Blade at the Rural American Writers’ Center in Plainview. She was a regular at poetry gatherings in Plainview and her poetry appeared in regional publications. She also wrote a monthly op-ed column for the Rochester Post Bulletin on mental health and social justice issues. Petrichor is her first full-length book. The book opens with a poem about her son’s incarceration and takes us through instances of grief, trauma, and happiness at different points in her life. Ellen Bass, judge of the Barbara Stevens contest, says, “Petrichor is a powerful collection of honest poems declaring the power of resilience. They are filled with fresh, engaging imagery that holds the tension between beauty and harsh truths.” Author Patricia Barone says, “As a therapist herself, she cries with men ‘weeping for the first time in 40 years’ as they confront the violent core of their own lives.”
Readers will draw healing and hope from these courageous poems.
This series is sponsored by Shipwreckt Books, the Blue Heron Coffeehouse, Chapter Two Books, and Friends of the Winona Public Library.
Shipwreckt Books and Laureate Writers Series organizers Ken McCullough and Emilio DeGrazia are members of the River Arts Alliance. To learn more about the benefits of membership, please visit: riverartsalliance.org/membership/.