PEN America Prison and Justice Writing Program - Incarcerated Adult and Youth Support Services and Programs

Group	Community And Other Support Services
Category	Incarcerated Adult and Youth Support Services and Programs
Name	PEN America Prison and Justice Writing Program
Provider	Bridgeworks Oregon, Inc

Description

PEN America stands at the intersection of literature and human rights to protect free expression in the United States and worldwide. They champion the freedom to write, recognizing the power of the word to transform the world. Their mission is to unite writers and their allies to celebrate creative expression and defend the liberties that make it possible.

PEN America’s Prison and Justice Writing Program has amplified the work of thousands of writers who are creating while incarcerated in the United States. By providing resources, mentorship, and audiences outside the walls, PEN helps these writers to join and enrich the broader literary community. Committed to the freedom to write in U.S. prisons as a critical free expression issue of our time, PEN leverages the transformative possibilities of writing to raise public consciousness about the societal implications of mass incarceration and support the development of justice-involved literary talent.

PEN America’s Prison and Justice Writing program initiatives include:

Prison Banned Books Week To commemorate the first Prison Banned Book Week, PEN America released a new report showing the staggering extent of restrictions on reading materials for people in carceral settings.

The Sentences That Create Us PEN America’s new book, The Sentences That Create Us: Crafting A Writer’s Life in Prison (Haymarket Books) provides a road map for incarcerated people and their allies to have a thriving writing life behind bars—and shared beyond the walls—that draws on the unique insights of more than fifty contributors, most themselves justice-involved, to offer advice, inspiration and resources.

PEN Prison Writing Contest For over 30 years, hundreds of imprisoned writers from around the country submit poetry, fiction, nonfiction, and dramatic works to the yearly PEN Prison Writing Contest, one of the longest-running outlets of free expression for the country’s incarcerated population.

Prison Writing Mentor Program PEN America’s Prison Writing Mentor Program consists of more than 300 working writers in relationship with close to 300 incarcerated writers working together toward individualized literary goals and cultivating an engaged literary community through and behind the walls.

Writing for Justice Fellowship PEN America’s Writing for Justice Fellowship commissions writers—emerging or established—to create written works of lasting merit that illuminate critical issues related to mass incarceration and catalyze public debate.

Works of Justice Publications and Podcast Works of Justice is a PEN America Prison and Justice Writing online literary series and podcast that explores the relationship between writing and incarceration, and challenges current conversations about criminal justice in the United States.