Writing the Stars

Sister Lou Ella Hickman has a master's degree in theology from St. Mary's University in San Antonio, Texas, and is a former teacher and librarian. She is a certified spiritual director as well as a poet and writer. Her poems have appeared in numerous magazines including America, First Things, Emmanuel, Third Wednesday, and new verse news, and four anthologies: The Night's Magician: Poems about the Moon, edited by Philip Kolin and Sue Brannan Walker; Down to the Dark River, edited by Philip Kolin; Secrets, edited by Sue Brannan Walker; and After Shocks: The Poetry of Recovery for Life-Shattering Events, edited by Tom Lombardo. She has published many articles including seven in Global Sisters Report and was nominated for the Pushcart Prize in 2017 and 2020. Her first book of poetry, entitled she: robed and wordless, was published in 2015 by Press 53. Five poems from she: robed and wordless were set to music as Chavah's Daughters Speak by James Lee III and were performed on May 11, 2021, with opera soprano Susanna Phillips, principal clarinetist Anthony McGill of the New York Philharmonic, and two-time Grammy-nominated pianist Mayra Huang. The arrangement was part of a concert held at Y92 in New York City. At the time of this publication, other concerts were sponsored by the Cleveland Chamber Music Society, Washington Irving High School in New York City, the Dallas Chamber Music Society, the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, Big Arts in Sanibel, Florida, and Clayton University in Morrow, Georgia.