Nicole Lombardi stood on stage at La Dama, an event hosted by the National Hispanic Institute on March 16 in the Reber Center, to empower women. She read a vulnerable piece of her memoir that tributes her mother.

This 1,700 word piece was just one of many personal essays that are shaping Lombardi’s memoir, she said. The pieces of her memoir have been selected to be published in an anthology called Songs of the Gilded Pen. She submitted it herself and it was selected as one of 18 others being published.

“The reality of growing up in an environment of instability that included moving a lot, a single mom and poverty, at the same time as feeling emotionally supported, inspired [the memoir],” Lombardi said. “Trying to answer the question of how my siblings and I became successful was the initial push for me [to write the memoir].”

She is currently writing an episode of her memoir in two different strands, Lombardi said. One focuses on coming of age and searching for stability, while the other centers on finding her voice in life. The piece that is being published is part of the thematic memoir of searching for her voice.

“I’m so proud of [Lombardi’s] hard work,” Erin Dickett ‘20 said. “She deserves it after all her hard work.”

Lombardi has read her piece that is being published, to her students, Dickett said. Her students were very excited to find out her accomplishment and to hear what she wrote.

“[Lombardi] has always been a reflective person and I think writing serves as a vehicle for her to know herself better and explore the world in which we live,” Karen Raino, English Division Chair, said.

Lombardi is taking this opportunity as a step towards furthering her writing career.

“I’m focused on where I am going and the direction I want to take my writing,” Lombardi said. “I am focused on the support I need to do it too.”

In addition to her memoir, Lombardi has been in a writing group in her neighborhood for three years and often writes with her students in class. Her group writes and critiques each others’ pieces.