by Sheena King
PM Press
10/14/2025, paperback
SKU: 9798887441344
Fearless honesty. Deep despair. Resilient discovery. Profound forgiveness. Revolutionary hope and liberation.
Submerged is the story of one woman's journey from a nightmare of childhood sexual abuse through a world of drug gangs and murder to prison and, ultimately, personal redemption through faith and a dedication to helping others.
Sheena King's raw, harrowing memoir anchored in revolutionary and transformative love is, at the same time, a story shared by tens of thousands of women, especially women of color who are incarcerated as the result of events that began with abuse by someone who should have been there to protect and nurture them.
During her years in prison, Sheena found the strength to free herself through the process of helping countless other survivors of childhood abuse. Now she offers her memoir with the express hope that it will help many more.
As Rikeyah Lindsay of the Abolitionist Law Center writes in her foreword, "We must take our collective healing seriously, interrogating the root causes and demanding accountability not only for ourselves but also for the systems that create the conditions in which so much harm can occur." With Lindsay's foreword and an introduction by Victoria Law, Submerged offers essential insights for all who want to understand and participate in the growing movement for alternatives to incarceration.
In her own introduction Sheena King writes: "I've told my story. Now tell yours. It will free you."
Reviews:
"Submerged is a tidal wave that will leave you feeling as if you are drowning only to provide a lifeline to stable ground. Sheena King painstakingly notes how sexual predators and family violence deepen the wells of despair and expand violence and childhood trauma. Her memoir notes the casualties of damaged children, women, and men and family members. King and the poets who contribute to this important text offer a raw record of memory, shame and rage. They ask for and offer accountability. Their caretaking as healers acknowledges vulnerabilities and violations of incarcerated women; this author and her community aids and educates everyone with this powerful book of rage and sorrow, death, and redemption. Anchored in revolutionary and transformative love, Submerged also allows us to swim to shore with our souls intact." -- Joy James, author of In Pursuit of Revolutionary Love and New Bones Abolition: Captive Maternal Agency and the (After)Life of Erica Garner
"With fearless honesty, Sheena King plunges us into the darkness of her childhood sexual abuse and shows us how soul-crushing and hidden trauma morphs a life of promise into a life sentence at the Muncy State Prison housing women in Central Pennsylvania. With humility and abiding faith, she recounts her experiences of deep personal evolution, healing, and love in a place antithetical to these pursuits, and her commitment to channel her strength and wisdom into helping others heal. Submerged weaves poetry and prose into a provocative narrative, witnessing how courage and emotional fortitude can dispel the darkest shadows and restore the light." -- Jennifer Hwozdek, teaching artist, Life Out Loud, a trauma-informed storytelling program serving incarcerated women and codirector, Ridgelines Language Arts
About the Contributors:
Sheena King is presently serving a life sentence at SCI Muncy in Muncy, PA, where she is an advocate for incarcerated women, with degrees in religious studies and Christian counseling. She is the published author of a book of poems and journal entries titled Unheard Souls and 3Sum. Her poems and essays have been published in journals including Let's Get Free, Daughters, The Philadelphia Inquirer, Pittsburgh Peace and Justice Newspaper, Prison Health News, Centers for Wisdom, and Tenacious. Her work has also appeared in several anthologies, including International Library of Poetry, and Interrupted Life: Experiences of Incarcerated Women in the United States.
Rikeyah Lindsay is healing justice organizer for Straight Ahead, the 501(c)(4) arm of the Abolitionist Law Center.
Victoria Law is a freelance journalist and author focused on incarceration, gender, and resistance. Her books include Resistance Behind Bars: The Struggles of Incarcerated Women, Prison by Any Other Name: The Harmful Consequences of Popular Reforms, and Corridors of Contagion: How the Pandemic Exposed the Cruelties of Incarceration.