Janet Luongo

Janet Luongo inspires and motivates people to express their true selves, develop supportive relationships, and create a fair and prosperous culture. She gives speeches and facilitates workshops. She taught college and all age levels, and uses visuals, humor and activities to engage audiences.

Janet addresses current issues in our nation, particularly gender and racial equity, from personal experience. For example, Janet spoke on leadership for women at colleges. In a recent webinar about understanding racism, she began by reading excerpts from her memoir, Rebellion, 1967, a story of her youth in New York City when she found purpose working for Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream. After her family broke up, she developed relationships in the Black community with a mural painter, community activist, neurosurgeon and jazz musician. Webinar participants, prompted, told powerful stories of their own encounters with those we were taught to see as “The Other.”

Janet is dedicated to finding creative ways to deal with troubled times. Know your dream, express who you are, follow your own path; when you stumble pick yourself up and keep going; send compassion to all, and respect all human beings as part of one humanity.

When Janet joined the National Speakers Association in 2000, the New York City chapter asked her to chair a national speakers conference and then elected her chapter president. A NSA colleague, Jack Canfield, author of the series, Chicken Soup for the Soul, wrote a foreword for her book, 365 Affirmations on Creativity, which encourages creative thinking in all areas of life. Published in five countries, it led to speeches in the US, Canada, Costa Rica and as far as Xian, China.

Janet taught communication and public speaking, and art history at Sacred Heart University in Fairfield, CT. She founded a non-profit chapter of the Women’s Caucus for Art that mounted forty exhibits and produced a film, Women Make Art, which screened at a UNIFEM film festival. Her innovative programs for underserved youth at museums in Bridgeport, Connecticut, garnered grants, awards and media.

Raised Unitarian Universalist in New York City, Janet received a Leading Light award in 2020 from The Unitarian Church in Westport where she’d served as associate director of family faith formation, and as chaplain. She designed a series of workshops, “Women and Imagination,” and started a team to promote voting rights. She recently helped plan presentations on gender equity, and building a multi-racial democracy. As leader of the Worship team, she planned summer services, and delivered several sermons herself, including “From Broken to Unbreakable.”

Janet earned a B.A. in art from Adelphi University, and a M.S.Ed from Queens College at CUNY. While teaching abroad 1978-86 at the International School of Geneva, she exhibited paintings in Paris. She resides in CT with her cat and husband Jim and they enjoy hiking with their son and his family in Colorado.