Risa Denenberg lives on the Olympic peninsula in Washington state where she works as a nurse practitioner and volunteers with End-of-Life Washington. During a decades-long career in healthcare, she has worked in family medicine, HIV/AIDS, substance abuse, women’s health, and hospice and palliative care. She is a co-founder of Headmistress Press, publisher of books of poetry by lesbian-identified women, and curator at The Poetry Café
Online, a space where poetry chapbooks are celebrated and reviewed. She has published eight collections of poetry, most recently, POSTHUMAN, finalist for the 2020 Floating Bridge Chapbook Contest, and Rain/Dweller, finalist for the 2023 Sally Albiso prize (MoonPath Press). Her poetry book reviews and interviews have been published at The Rumpus, Adroit, Cultural Daily, Broadsided Press, and other venues. Essays from her forthcoming memoir have been published at Pleiades Magazine, The Gay and Lesbian Review, Indiana Review, and Mom Egg Review.
Rain Dweller, (Finalist Sally Albiso Prize, MoonPath Press, 2023)
POSTHUMAN, (Finalist, Floating Bridge Chapbook Contest, 2020).
slight faith, (MoonPath Press, 2018)
Whirlwind at Lesbos (Headmistress Press, 2016)
Blinded by Clouds, (Hyacinth Girl Press, 2014)
Mean Distance from the Sun (Kelsay Books, 2014)
In My Exam Room (The Lives You Touch Publications, 2014)
Watch for Risa’s memoir, I’ll Look for You at Moonrise, due for release on June 8th, 2027.
Description:
I’ll Look for You at Moonrise is a coming-of-age memoir, depicting scenes from Risa’s life amidst the turbulent years of the sixties and seventies. Born in 1950, Risa was a hippie-turned-lesbian mom who gave birth to a son in 1969, only to lose custody of him to his father when he was six. The narrative follows her life through its most significant episodes: an illegal abortion; traveling overland with a group of hippies from Copenhagen to Nepal; her son’s unattended birth in Kabul, Afghanistan; leaving an abusive relationship and coming out as a lesbian; the courtroom drama in 1976, followed by an award of custody to his father; and how her son and she shared a promise that bound them together through their years of separation. Interspersed with poems and journal entries, the memoir confronts the decades-long effects of keeping a shameful secret, and how she was able to recover from that life-shattering loss.