Literature in Prison

I'm overwhelmed by the generosity that came so quickly. You met the goal in less than 24 hours!  For that reason, I'll end donations for this year, but want to thank everyone who donation and reached out to others for your kindness. This will be a meaningful year for the men in the group.

I was tempted to raise the goal and collect more more, but because I can't know for sure what might happen with the prison next year, I don't want to take money that I might not be able to use.  But possibly we'll try this again, so if you were interested and didn't get to contribute, stay in touch and you may hear from me again! 

It's my hope that this will continue for many years, and spread to other prisons in SC.
 
Here's my original appeal, if you want to know more now:

Make it possible for men in prison to read and discuss real literature! I’m looking for help buying books to be read and discussed at a medium-maximum security prison in South Carolina.  These will be works of serious literature, especially those written by black writers. The theme we'll follow this year is the  question of personal responsibility:

Butler, Octavia        Kindred

Achebe, Chinua      Things Fall Apart

Fitzgerald, Scott     The Great Gatsby

O’Brien, Tim             The Things They Carried

Morrison, Toni         Beloved

Camus, Albert         The Plague

Daley, James            The World’s Greatest Short Stories (Dover) or possibly James Alan McPherson's Elbow Room.

I'll buy the books (in paperback, possibly used), prepare background materials and reading questions, lead the discussions, and prepare for each book with a short discussion before we start--most books will take more than one discussion to cover, and some will take several. We'll probably meet once a week for two hours, though prison schedules are unpredictable. This will probably last from mid-October, 2016,  through mid-April, 2017. 

Last year a grant from The Humanities Council of SC funded the first round of book discussions, but it was a one-time-only grant and also it’s very difficult to coordinate a grant’s schedule with the realities of prison life, so I’m trying crowd-sourced funding instead. The men were very enthusiastic and have told their friends about the group, and the prison also encourages us to repeat the group.

A number of small contributions to the project will show the men that there are many people in the community who encourage them to read and think, and I know they feel a responsibility to stick with the sometimes-difficult work of reading and thinking when they know that other people have made it possible.

This is not an expensive project—I can buy fifteen copies of seven books for under $1000, so that is my goal. My time and the prison space are donated.

If it's possible to fund the group this year for less than that, I'll save the money for next year's group. I don't reuse the books, because one goal is have the books passed on to other inmates. In a setting where books are scarce, each volume will be read by many.

I first realized how much reading meant to men in prison when I taught English there for a community college, and since then I've led meditation groups for many years in prison settings. My own backgroup includes 30 years of teaching experience, many years of leading library book discussions, and a lifetime of reading and talking about books.  

Studies have shown that exposure to good literature has the power to increase empathy, and we all know that reading increases literacy and cultural awareness.  I hope you’ll be willing to help with a donation to this project. 

Both the men in the group and I will be very grateful for your generosity, and you can know that you're not only making someone's life a little better, but you may also be making a small contribution towards turning him to a better way of living.