Amplify the Voices of Incarcerated Writers

America has the highest rate of incarceration of any country in the world. Despite being a wealthy, developed nation, America is over-reliant on incarceration and holds 2 million citizens in its prisons and jails. The system is clearly broken, and the most informed journalists to report on this issue are a part of that population, silenced by their incarceration.

While many media outlets have made recent strides to publish the work of writers from marginalized communities, there is still much to be done to amplify the voices of incarcerated writers.

Writers experiencing incarceration face many barriers. Without access to standard email or phone services (let alone tools like Google Docs), connecting with editors and building a literary career is very challenging.

Today, we are raising funds to create a writers’ development program, a pilot program led by Christopher Blackwell, a journalist who is incarcerated in Washington state, and it will function in partnership with Empowerment Avenue, the program that helped foster Chris’s career in journalism.

Whereas Empowerment Avenue matches incarcerated writers with writers on the outside who pitch and promote their work, this pilot program aims to expand that model. This pilot program will create paid positions for existing incarcerated journalists to help fledgling incarcerated writers launch their careers by honing their writing skills and fostering their confidence through positive support and mentorship.

The money raised here will support the development of the program so it can be led and implemented by successful incarcerated journalists across the country. This will allow dozens of writers to share their and others’ experiences inside our prisons, highlighting the changes we can make to reduce our reliance on mass incarceration and its harmful nature within our communities.

It is of the utmost importance to have system-impacted voices at the forefront of the conversation around incarceration and prison reform. To do this, we must train and support incarcerated folks interested in writing and publishing. In addition, the success of this pilot program will pave the way for expansion into other prisons nationwide.

Our goal is to raise $10,000.

These funds will support the following areas of the program:

To ensure our lead organizer, Christopher Blackwell, has the time and capacity to support the other writers, he will receive a monthly stipend. This will allow him to focus less on his own writing and publishing and more on supporting the work of the first four writers in the cohort in Washington. (All of the compensation from the writers’ published work goes directly to the writers.) Chris has already been supporting these writers unpaid, but with the help of this fundraiser, he can dedicate more time to this work. The program has already seen success with pitches accepted at Jewish Currents, Solitary Watch, and PEN America.

We will provide all new writers with a starter kit of books. Each kit includes a copy of these books: Concise Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford American Writer's Thesaurus - 3rd Edition, Oxford Garner's Modern English Usage - 4th Edition, The Elements of Journalism 4th Edition by Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel, and On Writing Well: The Classic Guide to Writing Nonfiction by William Zinsser. Writers will have access to request additional books at any point. All good writers are readers, and without access to the internet, incarcerated writers rely on books for research and to help them develop their critical thinking skills.

The funds will help us fulfill the writers’ research requests, allowing our three volunteers on the outside to print and mail materials for our writers to use to support the claims made in their pieces.

Prison communication is a huge cost. Prisoners are charged exorbitant rates for local phone calls and emails. (For example, it costs $10 for 60 email stamps.) Funding will help to offset these barriers by making communication accessible for the writers and the lead developer.

We will also use the funds we raise to create a beginner’s manual that will help writers understand the basics of journalism. It will provide templates for different types of pieces (personal essays, op-eds, investigative pieces, etc.), information about journalistic ethics, guidance on how to discuss race, gender and sexuality in an equitable way, a glossary for terms used in journalism, and instructions on how to pitch potential stories.