About

Lanette Sweeney is a full-time writer whose first poetry collection, What I Should Have Said, is forthcoming from Finishing Line Press. The poetry memoir is divided into the stages of grief and focuses on her son's addiction and overdose death in 2016. The book features poems by her late son mixed in with her own and will be available for pre-sales starting in April of 2021. 

Lanette is a mom, foster mom, and grieving mother; a grandma and a grieving grandmother; a feminist and Black Lives Matter activist, a fierce friend, a pet lover, and a great romantic. (That last part is also thanks to her wife's support.) Lanette is a ravenous reader, as well, and is trying to post all her Goodreads reviews in her sidebar. 

In her 35-year writing career, Lanette has published her poetry, short stories, essays and non-fiction articles in the popular women's studies textbook Women: Images and Reality, in daily newspapers,  including The Las Vegas Sun, and in literary journals, including Rattle, Blue Collar Review, Down in the Dirt, Foliate Oak Review, Silkworm, and Tiger Shark. 

Want to feel less alone? Check out all this pandemic poetry published by Straw Dog Writers' Guild, of which I am a proud member.