Doing Time

Doing Time
Author: Bell Gale Chevigny
Publisher: Skyhorse Publishing, Inc.
Total Pages: 572
Release: 2011-11-01
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1611451442

A special collection of the best fiction, essays, poetry, and plays from annual PEN Prison Writing contest offers unique insights into the emotions and thoughts engendered by the prison experience, ranging from humor and empathy to rage, fear, and despair. 15,000 first printing.

Breathe Into the Ground

Breathe Into the Ground
Author: Caits Meissner-Chiriga
Publisher:
Total Pages: 330
Release: 2021-01-29
Genre:
ISBN:

The 2020 anthology, titled Breathe into the Ground, is an impressive collection of poetry, nonfiction, and drama from incarcerated writers in the United States. This year, we include personal letters from the writers about their experience during the pandemic, and we introduce the PEN America/L'Engle-Rahman Award in Mentorship with moving letters from our mentorship pairs. Also included is original artwork accompanying pieces provided by incarcerated artists through the Justice Arts Coalition.

Conscience Be My Guide

Conscience Be My Guide
Author: Geoffrey Bould
Publisher: Zed Books
Total Pages: 324
Release: 2005-08
Genre: Literary Collections
ISBN: 9781842776759

This remarkable collection of prison literature inspires with the eloquent idealism of prisoners of conscience through the ages. The contributors include many of the world's finest writers: Wole Soyinka, Primo Levi, Irina Ratushinskaya, Fydor Dostoyevsky, Henry Thoreau. There are moving accounts from victims of the Holocaust, Soviet labour camps and psychiatric prisons, nuclear protestors, civil rights and anti-apartheid activists, anti-colonial nationalists and targets of religious persecution throughout history.

Prison Writing in 20th-Century America

Prison Writing in 20th-Century America
Author: H. Bruce Franklin
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 388
Release: 1998-06-01
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 9780140273052

"Harrowing in their frank detail and desperate tone, the selections in this anthology pack an emotional wallop...Should be required reading for anyone concerned about the violence in our society and the high rate of recidivism."—Publishers Weekly. Includes work by: Jack London, Nelson Algren, Chester Himes,Jack Henry Abbott, Robert Lowell, Malcolm X, Mumia Abu-Jamal, and Piri Thomas.

A Prison Anthology: Brushy Mountain 2005-2007

A Prison Anthology: Brushy Mountain 2005-2007
Author: Garry W. Johnson
Publisher:
Total Pages: 178
Release: 2020-07-20
Genre: True Crime
ISBN: 9781735450704

News items and events spanning 3 years of the notorious Brushy Mountain State Penitentiary. In the pages of this book you will get a taste of what life was like for the last residences of this 113-year-old relic of the convict-lease system. Men from the inside produced a publication that outlasted the prison and has been preserved here for your review.That's not to say everything you read in these pages will be exactly what it seems. The Mountain Review went out on a limb now and then, but it was a government document, a censored publication - "the man" got to read it long before the prisoners did. That is why you may have to read between the lines as you journey through these publications; many of the real stories are a little deeper than what is apparent at first glance.What will be apparent is that not every person in prison is the type of character you see on television (though there are a few). Prisoners still make much hay about being a "convict," but the ideas on how a person in the system should act are more andmore convoluted everyday. What it comes down to is a split between the decent and the devious, and the majority who are much of both.Fortunately for me, in the almost 10 years I worked on this publication, the decent seemed to be the ones with the most tosay. We hope that this book serves as a testament that there are a few good people who have put themselves in really bad placesand a handful more that realized their mistakes and are trying to turn it around. The proceeds from this book will help folks likethese make the inside a better place and help insure that the ones who get out never return.

Running the Books

Running the Books
Author: Avi Steinberg
Publisher: Anchor
Total Pages: 418
Release: 2011-10-04
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0767931319

Avi Steinberg is stumped. After defecting from yeshiva to attend Harvard, he has nothing but a senior thesis on Bugs Bunny to show for himself. While his friends and classmates advance in the world, Steinberg remains stuck at a crossroads, his “romantic” existence as a freelance obituary writer no longer cutting it. Seeking direction (and dental insurance) Steinberg takes a job running the library counter at a Boston prison. He is quickly drawn into the community of outcasts that forms among his bookshelves—an assortment of quirky regulars, including con men, pimps, minor prophets, even ghosts—all searching for the perfect book and a connection to the outside world. Steinberg recounts their daily dramas with heartbreak and humor in this one-of-a-kind memoir—a piercing exploration of prison culture and an entertaining tale of one young man’s earnest attempt to find his place in the world.

"These Strange Criminals"

Author: Peter Brock
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
Total Pages: 534
Release: 2004-01-01
Genre: Literary Collections
ISBN: 9780802086617

Sometimes intensely moving, and often inspiring, these memoirs show that in some cases, individual conscientious objectors - many well-educated and politically aware - sought to reform the penal system from within either by publicizing its dysfunction or through further resistance to authority.

America Is the Prison

America Is the Prison
Author: Lee Bernstein
Publisher: UNC Press Books
Total Pages: 239
Release: 2010-06-01
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0807898325

In the 1970s, while politicians and activists outside prisons debated the proper response to crime, incarcerated people helped shape those debates though a broad range of remarkable political and literary writings. Lee Bernstein explores the forces that sparked a dramatic "prison art renaissance," shedding light on how incarcerated people produced powerful works of writing, performance, and visual art. These included everything from George Jackson's revolutionary Soledad Brother to Miguel Pinero's acclaimed off-Broadway play and Hollywood film Short Eyes. An extraordinary range of prison programs--fine arts, theater, secondary education, and prisoner-run programs--allowed the voices of prisoners to influence the Black Arts Movement, the Nuyorican writers, "New Journalism," and political theater, among the most important aesthetic contributions of the decade. By the 1980s and '90s, prisoners' educational and artistic programs were scaled back or eliminated as the "war on crime" escalated. But by then these prisoners' words had crossed over the wall, helping many Americans to rethink the meaning of the walls themselves and, ultimately, the meaning of the society that produced them.

Gridlock

Gridlock
Author: Johnny L Ward Ma
Publisher:
Total Pages: 180
Release: 2020-08-14
Genre:
ISBN:

The GRIDLOCK anthology explores the grittiness of Texas prisons and its impact on those still behind the walls and the lasting effects on those released. The anthology is comprised of personal narratives that humanize those in prison. In addition, it gives various perspectives of the system, the culture, and the ambitious nature of those who want a second chance to do something substantial with their lives. Further, poetry and stories are included to highlight the abilities of incarcerated scholars, many of whom have earned both Bachelor's and Master's degrees. Lastly, information has been included for the supporters and loved ones of those behind the walls. May the insight, advice, and direction give those who read it the ability to help those still struggling to find their way in an environment that can be both physically and psychologically crippling.