2018 Prison Writing Awards Anthology inFiction by William Myrl Smitherman, Peter M. Dunne, John Cephas Young, John Corley, Anna M. Vanderford, Marcos Celis, Burl N. Corbett, Antonio WilliamsEssays by Saint James Harris Wood, Sterling Cunio, Michael LambrixPoetry by Matthew Mendoza, Sean J. White, Elizabeth Hawes, Gary K. Farlow, Edward Ji, Geneva J. Phillips, M. Ophelia VaughnDrama by Jesus Alvarez, Viorel Capraru, Jason Christner, Sterling Cunio, Key Davis, Christian Hawkins,Ben Pervish, Troy Ramsey, and Phil Stockton, Matthew Mendoza, Gordon Bowers, Elizabeth Hawes, Benjamin Frandsen, Paul Swehla, Essau A. StrawberryMemoirs by James Anderson, George T. Wilkerson, Danner DarcleightNonfiction by Branton Noojin, William Anderson, Mark Altenhofen, Annamarie Harris Romero, Derick McCarthy

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.

"Doing time." For prison writers, it means more than serving a sentence; it means staying alive and sane, preserving dignity, reinventing oneself, and somehow retaining one's humanity. For the last quarter century the prestigious writers' organization PEN has sponsored a contest for writers behind bars to help prisoners face these challenges. Bell Chevigny, a former prison teacher, has selected the best of these submissions from over the last 25 years to create Doing Time: 25 Years of Prison Writing--a vital work, demonstrating that prison writing is a vibrant part of American literature. This new edition will contain updated biographies of all contributors. The 51 original prisoners contributing to this volume deliver surprising tales, lyrics, and dispatches from an alien world covering the life span of imprisonment, from terrifying initiations to poignant friendships, from confrontations with family to death row, and sometimes share extraordinary breakthroughs. With 1.8 million men and women--roughly the population of Houston--In American jails and prisons, we must listen to "this small country of throwaway people," in Prejean's words. Doing Time frees them from their sentence of silence. We owe it to ourselves to listen to their voices.

Nicole Fleetwood enters American prisons to explore the creativity flourishing there. Though isolated and degraded, incarcerated artists produce bold works that testify to the economic and racial injustice of American punishment. These pieces, many published here for the first time, offer a new vision of freedom for the twenty-first century.

A compendium of art published in response to the 1971 Attica uprising. The book reproduces paintings, drawings, collages, prints, and sculptures by 48 concerned artists. Some works refer to actual events at Attica; others are abstract and in this context take on a symbolic character. The book also includes a selection of poems by four Attica prisoners.

Performing New Lives draws together some of the most original and innovative programs in contemporary prison theatre. Leading prison theatre directors and practitioners discuss the prison theatre experience first-hand, and offer valuable insights into its role, function, and implementation. A wide range of prison theatre initiatives are discussed, from long-running, high-profile programs such as Curt Tofteland's "Shakespeare Behind Bars" in LaGrange, Kentucky, to fledgling efforts like Jodi Jinks' "ArtsAloud" project in Austin, Texas. The book offers unique insights into the many dimensions of the prison theatre experience, including: negotiating the rules and restrictions of the prison environment; establishing trust, teaching performance skills and managing crises; building relationships and dealing with conflicts; and negotiating public performances and public perceptions. Excerpts of interviews with inmates, and a conversation between practitioners in the final chapter, reveal the impact that prison theatre programs have on the performers themselves, as well as audience members, and the wider community. Exploring prison theatre processes and theory with insights into how it works in practice, and how to replicate it, this book is essential reading for drama therapists, theatre artists, and prison educators, as well as academics.

Following the Attica prison uprising in September 1971, Celes Tisdale--a poet and then professor at Buffalo State College--began leading poetry workshops with those incarcerated at Attica. Tisdale's workshop created a space of radical Black creativity and solidarity, in which poets who lived through the uprising were able to turn their experiences into poetry. The poems written by Tisdale's students were published as Betcha Ain't: Poems from Attica in 1974. When the Smoke Cleared contains the entirety of Betcha Ain't, Tisdale's own poems and journal entries from the three years he taught at Attica, a previously unpublished collection of poems by Attica poets, and a critical introduction by poet Mark Nowak. In addition to the poetry, Tisdale's journal entries give readers a unique opportunity to experience what it was like to enter Attica as an educator and return week after week to discuss poetry. When the Smoke Cleared showcases these poets' achievements, their desire for self-determination, and their historical role as storytellers of Black life in a prison monitored exclusively by white guards and administrators.