that may be a spin off from my blog, “Who’s
That Lady?” Finally, we came up with some-
thing that we hadn’t seen done a lot in the
world of book writing, and that’s pulling
different women from different backgrounds
together to write about the same words. We
were interested in finding out just where all
of our paths crossed as women.
HimPower: How did you go about
choosing the seven words?
DiAnne Malone: We started out with
50 words! Those words were just ones that
we found exciting, those “pretty” words
that came right off the top of our heads.
We whittled them down to 25, I think, and
finally, we got them down to ten words.
Those ten words, in our minds, embodied
what we felt would be a most interesting
invitation for interpretation among our little
tribe. When the ladies and I workshopped
together, we decided as a unit which words
to toss and which to keep.
HimPower: What inspired you to choose
the five women who help to make up the 7
voices?
DiAnne Malone: Initially, I wanted to
use voices from my blog. So, I sent out an
invitation to all the ladies to see who would
bite. A few were in but then were out. Some
were too busy; others were trying to have
babies. Aside from that, I wanted to choose
women who had ferociousness about them,
those women who had something to say, to
hide even, but never had the platform to get
to the essence of who they are and how they
embody their womanhood.
HimPower: How did writing an essay
28 HimPower September 2018
for each word impact you personally? And
was this experience the same for each of the
women who participated?
DiAnne Malone: Personally, I realized
that I had some unresolved situations, some
things to settle with myself I thought were
done. Finished. But somehow, those words
were like magnets or even shovels, pulling
and digging out stuff that I’d bulldozed
over with other projects. I actually cried
(something that I rarely do publicly), during
the workshop, over something that I’d
written months before. I was sitting there
thinking to myself, “Why are you crying?
You wrote this! You knew this was here!”
Anyway, in a lot of ways, the words broke
something in me, and I’m really blessed to
be able to slough some stuff off. The experi-
ence for the other women was quite similar,
or at least I felt so. I mean, they were all in
from the start, and the synergy between us
allowed us to feel each other’s heart. I’m not
making this up. We really knew each other
through those words, so seeing the impact
through their eyes was transformative and
real. I don’t think anyone could have faked
that experience.
HimPower: Hope, do you believe the
book speaks to every woman? If yes, explain
why?
Hope LeNoir: Yes, I think so. Every
single woman in the world has lost some-
thing and gained something, and as I look
back on the book’s themes and the essence
of the discussions, I would have to say that
it is about loss and gain. I mean, I feel like
we discovered some issues we just had to