PEN America Works of Justice

In November 2023, Coffee House Press released American Precariat: Parables of Exclusion⁠ , an anthology of essays edited by a collective of incarcerated writers involved in the Minnesota Prison Writing Workshop . The volume interrogates the complexity and fluidity of class and caste systems in the United States, and includes transcribed conversations of the editors discussing each essay. In the la...

Theater harnesses the power to both break worlds down, and build worlds of our choosing. As a performer and a former community engagement specialist for a Washington, D.C-based theater, artist and scholar Lisa Biggs has seen this happen several times across many places. As a graduate student, Biggs chose the discipline of ethnography to study the work of nonprofits who provide theater and performa...

This month marks the three-year anniversary of the exoneration of Lacino Hamilton , who was falsely incarcerated for the murder of his foster mother at the age of 19. Sentenced to at least 50 years in prison, Hamilton spent 26 years maintaining his innocence and was exonerated by DNA evidence in September 2023. While in prison, Hamilton wrote countless letters advocating for his release and publis...

How far would you go for forgiveness? This is the question stamped on the cover of Forgive Me Not (Nancy Paulsen Books / Penguin, 2023), the debut young adult novel by Jennifer Baker . The novel follows two siblings navigating the growing pains of high school and young adulthood. This comes to a head when Violetta gets drunk and gets behind the wheel of a car, killing her younger sister. As a mino...

In Beethoven's 1805 opera  Fidelio , a man who has been wrongly imprisoned, and his wife must bring him justice. More than two centuries later,  Heartbeat Opera  breathes new life into the opera by confronting contemporary challenges with anti-Blackness and incarceration in the United States in their 2018 adaptation of the opera. In this reimagining, the main character is a Black Lives Matter...

In January 2023, people incarcerated throughout the state of Texas organized a collective hunger strike to demand better living conditions. A couple years prior, Canada native Damascus James had relocated to Texas from New York City, and began to write letters to incarcerated people in the state in order to develop connections with isolated communities. From his initial correspondence with one wri...

Ask Tommy Trantino to describe himself, and he may simply respond, “endless.” Ask him the same question on another day, and the answer will be different. For Trantino, it’s complicated. Officially, he writes, draws, and paints. But he also loves to make people laugh, and his mission is to do as much good as possible. Incarcerated for nearly 40 years in New Jersey, the New York City native was plac...

A few years ago, Tracy D. Schlapp and Danny J. Wilson were inspired by Johnny Cash’s album, At Folsom Prison (1968), to stage concerts of Cash's music in prisons around Oregon. Schlapp and Wilson's performances blossomed into Bridgeworks Oregon, a Portland-based nonprofit with the mission of using art, music and cultural awareness to bridge societal divisions throughout the state. In May 2019, the...

For over 50 years, the Southern California Library has made history a practice. Housing an extensive collection of histories of community resistance in Los Angeles and beyond, the library also serves as a community organization. Though he grew up not too far from the library, anthropologist Damien M. Sojoyner only learned it existed as an adult. When asked to help develop programs and teach a summ...

The New York Women's House of Detention was a fixture of Greenwich Village from 1932 to 1974. For public historian Hugh Ryan , its position as a cultural center is proof that jails and prisons were not always peripheral to the development of communities in the United States. In fact, they were sometimes considered in the urban planning of cities and neighborhoods. Ryan discovered the Women's House...

In the latest episode of PEN America’s Works of Justice podcast, Malcolm Tariq, senior manager of editorial projects for PEN America’s Prison and Justice Writing, speaks with Celes Tisdale about the recent reissue of his anthology, When the Smoke Cleared: Attica Prison Poems and Journal (Duke University Press, 2022), originally published as Betcha' Ain't: Attica Poems (Broadside Press, 1974). Tisd...

With When They Tell You To Be Good (Tin House, 2022), Prince Shakur delivers a political coming of age memoir on growing up as a queer child in a Jamaican family, and his development as a radical organizer, traveler, and writer. As he spends pivotal years in his twenties traveling and participating in movements such as Black Lives Matter and Standing Rock, Shakur carries the experiences of growing...

In The Life Inside: A Memoir of Prison, Family and Philosophy (Picador, 2022), Andy West writes about his experiences teaching philosophy in prisons in the United Kingdom. A touching memoir of hope and healing, The Life Inside chronicles how West asks his students challenging questions about life that also get him to reconsider the deep-seeded traumas and guilt he's been carrying for years. In the...

In Bending the Arc: My Journey from Prison to Politics (Seal Books, 2021), Keeda J. Haynes pulls back the veil on what happens in the criminal legal system. In a series of events, Haynes went from working as a correctional officer in a local jail to serving time in federal prison for a crime she did not commit. Having later completed law school and served as a public defender, Haynes has the uniqu...

Marlon Peterson’s Bird Uncaged: An Abolitionist’s Freedom Song (Bold Type Books, 2021) is a poignant look at what it means to transform one’s life by taking accountability. Tracing Peterson’s life from his childhood in Brooklyn to his journey to becoming a writer after 10 years of incarceration, the memoir grapples with the devastating impacts of interpersonal and systemic violence. At its core, t...

PEN America Prison and Justice Writing Postgraduate Fellow Sophia Ramirez interviews legal scholar, sociologist, and social justice advocate Dorothy E. Roberts about her new book, Torn Apart: How the Child Welfare System Destroys Black Families—and How Abolition Can Build a Safer World , which peels back the benevolent façade of the child welfare system, revealing the cruel and oppressive structur...

PEN American Prison and Justice Writing Director Caits Meissner talks with Lincoln Center Poet-In-Residence Mahogany L. Browne about Browne’s new Choreopoem, "Quilted Steele," premiering at Lincoln Center on June 13, 2022. The two discuss Browne's process for writing the choreopoem, collaboration, and caring for oneself and community while confronting and witnessing injustice.

PEN America Prison and Justice Writing Postgraduate Fellow Sophia Ramirez speaks with Derecka Purnell about her latest book, Becoming Abolitionists: Police, Protests, and the Pursuit of Freedom . In this episode, Purnell discusses the meaning of abolition, the problem with social media activism, and what keeps us hopeful when pushing for change.

PEN America Postgraduate Fellow Emma Stammen talks with 2018-2019 Writing for Justice Fellow David Sanchez about his debut novel All Day is a Long Time —a semi-autobiographical coming-of-age story encompassing addiction, mental illness, homelessness, incarceration, and sobriety.