Believing Women: Writers on Silence, Shame, and Sexual Violence

Date: 5/1/25

Time: 5:30-7:30pm

Location: Jordan's Jungle, 545 Pawtucket Ave, Pawtucket, RI

About the Event:

"Believing Women" is an evening of art and storytelling in support of Sojourner House. Featuring readings from authors Grace Talusan (The Body Papers), Nina MacLaughlin (Wake, Siren), Michelle Bowdler (Is Rape a Crime? A Memoir, an Investigation, and a Manifesto), and Christine Murphy (Notes on Surviving the Fire), the event is designed to start conversations, build community, and break the silence around sexual violence.

In between readings, attendees will have the opportunity to mingle, grab cocktails and mocktails from the Sippin Pretty popup, and enjoy artwork on display from Sojourner House's recent exhibition, "Dear Survivor."

Heartleaf Books, Rhode Islands only bookstore co-op, will be onsite selling books from all appearing authors.

About the Authors:

• Grace Talusan is the author of The Body Papers, which won the Restless Books Prize for New Immigrant writing and the Massachusetts Book Award for Nonfiction. In 2022, she was awarded fellowships from United States Artists, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Brother Thomas Fund. She teaches in the Nonfiction Writing Program at Brown University.
• Nina MacLaughlin is the author of Wake, Siren: Ovid Resung; Summer Solstice: An Essay (2024 Mass Book Award Winner); and the acclaimed memoir Hammer Head: The Making of a Carpenter. She's worked as a journalist and a carpenter and her writing has appeared in or on the Paris Review Daily, n+1, the Virginia Quarterly Review, The Boston Globe, the Believer, the New York Times Book Review, Agni, and elsewhere. She lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts and writes a weekly newsletter called New England Literary News.
• Michelle Bowdler is the author of Is Rape a Crime? A Memoir, an Investigation and a Manifesto, longlisted for the National Book Award, named a 100 Must Read book of 2020 by TIME Magazine, and on the best books list of the Boston Globe and Publishers Weekly. Bowdler has been an advocate to change how law enforcement, policy makers and judges address sexual assault. Anita Hill wrote in the Journal Signs about her work "At the risk of  overlooking others, I would add Michelle Bowdler and Salimmishah Tillett to the list of those who have changed the way we think and talk about gender violence". She is currently working on her second book about higher education and student mental health, which will be published by Basic Books in 2026.
• Christine Murphy has lived, worked, and traveled in more than a hundred countries, including living for eleven months in a tent across the African continent and a year as a resident in a Buddhist nunnery in the Himalayas. A trained Buddhologist, Murphy has a Ph.D. in religious studies. Notes on Surviving the Fire is her first novel.