Artists Calling In: Poetry Reading & Artist Talk
Stories in This American Life, Rolling Stone, Failed Architecture, Texas Observer, et al
Welcome to Empowerment Ave! Learn more about our history, partnerships, and past published work here. Subscribe to the newsletter here.
EA community, the spring is here, and we have some amazing programs ahead! In partnership with YBCA and MoAD, we are hosting In Solidarity: Our Words Scale Walls—a live poetry reading inside The Only Door I Can Open exhibition. This event will feature five poets, including co-curators Tomiekia Johnson and Chantell-Jeannette Black, who will call from the Central California Women's Facility at Chowchilla to share new poetry.
If you are in the Bay Area, join us for an afternoon of spoken word, a live mix by DJ Sandina, "La Positiva," at YBCA on Saturday, April 12, 2025, from 2:00 PM to 4:00 PM.
As Painting Ourselves Into Society comes to a close, we invite everyone to join us for one last First Friday at Manna Gallery. The evening will feature an artist talk with co-curator Orlando “O. Smith” Smith, calling in from inside San Quentin, on Friday, April 4, 2025, from 5:00 PM to 8:00 PM, with the artist talk happening from 6:30 PM to 7:00 PM.
In March, EA writers were highly productive. Among them, Xandan Gulley published three new pieces, and Kwaneta Harris published five new articles, one of which appeared in This American Life—a first for Empowerment Avenue. We heard from writers reflecting on their traumatic pasts and harrowing incidents, noticing the similarities between public housing and state prisons, and critically evaluating modern literature. Read on for more ways to support the EA writing network.
Lastly: We want to say THANK YOU for subscribing and following along. We have close to 800 subscribers, which means so much to us. Thank you for amplifying, sharing, and supporting this greatly important work. You are our community.
Our Latest Work
For The Appeal’s1 newsletter, Christopher Blackwell wrote about prison, football, and toxic masculinity. "I was raised an Eagles fan. Their Super Bowl win reminded me of painful lessons my father and his father gave me."
From New York state prison, Corey Devon Arthur wrote for The Progressive2 about the long-building issues and tensions that led to the correctional officer strike. "A punishing job market has shackled the prison guard to prison along with me..."
For Shado Magazine3, Xandan Gulley writes about going through adulthood without tech or a computer, and what happened when tablets came to his prison, in this piece titled “The world left me behind: decades in prison and I didn’t know how to use a computer!”
Also from Xandan Gulley: A critical look into the use of tasers inside his solitary confinement unit, for Texas Observer4. "To me, it looked like the electric chair was officially back in the prisons."
In our latest for our partnership with Study & Struggle5, where incarcerated writers review radical and leftist books, Xandan Gulley reviews Dean Spade’s Loved In A F*cked Up World. "Read this book if you are searching for self discovery..."
Kwaneta Harris and Debbie Zalesne teamed up for The Marshall Project6 to document solitary confinement for women and sexual exploitation by correctional officers. "This conduct is so routine that many women — particularly the younger ones — don’t even think of it as abuse."
"In the shadowed corners of American prisons, where time stands still and humanity often crumbles, women have endured the cruel practice of solitary confinement for over two centuries." A not-to-miss Solitary Watch7 story by Kwaneta Harris.
EA has its first story for the critically-acclaimed This American Life8! Kwaneta Harris wrote “You’ve Come to the Right Prison” about how her knowledge as a nurse has become a resource to others at her prison.
For Rolling Stone9, Kwaneta Harris wrote about the dire state of women's health in prison and her fears of it getting even worse under Trump. “With the way our country is headed, I’m worried about my sisters on the outside.”
And Kwaneta Harris writes for the Mellon Foundation10 about her long history as a writer, the power it has brought her during incarceration, and the impact of being a Haymarket Writing Freedom Fellow.
For Prism11, Catherine LaFleur shared about the opportunities and limitations of a lactation program at her Florida prison. “I can’t hold him every day, but I take comfort knowing I’m still allowed to feed my child."
Incarcerated since he was a teen, Kevin Light-Roth penned a moving personal essay for Inquest12 about his 40th birthday, which marked “an extravagantly grim milestone: I’ve now been in captivity longer than I’d been alive when I was arrested.”
Steve Brooks, a California Local News Fellow with Bay City News Foundation13, has his latest story up about an emotional awareness class at San Quentin Prison: “‘Change the thoughts, change the behaviors, change the behaviors, change the thoughts,’ is our motto,” one of his sources told him.
For Christianity Today14, Antoine E. Davis wrote about how his religion has kept him grounded after surviving a violent childhood and going to prison. “Ideally, home should have been a refuge from the harsh realities of life in the outside world. Instead, it became the source of my trauma.”
Mithrellas Curtis, incarcerated in Virginia, poured her heart into this essay for the Substack newsletter Mental Health15 about mental health struggles, recovering from a suicide attempt, and what it means to survive in prison. “I was a spectator of my own life,” she writes.
After observing the similarities between architecture in New York’s public housing and state prisons, E. Paris Whitfield reflected on how both spaces are designed to oppress—and “shape physical realities at the same time as seeking to erase social ties, culture, and individuality”—for the publication Failed Architecture16.
Christopher Blackwell and Sarah Sax have a story up in The New York Times17 about the brutality of prison strip searches. "A state-imposed violation, which some experience as a form of sexual violence, which costs states and local governments millions in lawsuit settlements..."
The latest in our Black Lipstick18 partnership — where we feature writing from women and queer incarcerated folks — is an essay by Bobbi Cobaugh about her journey to becoming a jailhouse lawyer at a New York women's prison.
For The Appeal, Jeremy Busby writes about one harrowing reality in Texas state prisons, which incarcerate more than 4,500 people in two-person cells the size of a parking space for nearly 24 hours a day.
Artist Spotlight: Elizabeth Lozano
The year is off to a great start! EA artist Elizabeth Lozano is finally free after serving 30 years in prison.
EA first began working with Liz in 2023. Over the past two years Liz has worked hard to get her beautiful art outside prison walls. She participated in two iterations of the exhibition, The Only Door I Can Open: Women Exposing Prison through Art, was commissioned to create a powerful portrait of writer Kwaneta Harris for Mariame Kaba’s exhibition Return to Sender: Prison as Censorship, contributed a painting to EA’s art installation Work Assignments: Forced Prison Labor in the Land of the Free, and was selected to create art for a digital media campaign against Involuntary Servitude launched by Legal Services for Prisoners with Children (LSPC) and All of Us or None.
This painting, Muse, is one of Liz’s most recent and graces the walls of Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (YBCA) as part of The Only Door I Can Open. In her own words,
“This canvas represents my hope. The brick fades as I step from prison to freedom. The sound of the waves grasp my focus, as they sooth my spirit, and keep me grounded. I look straight ahead at the horizon, the lighthouse, my beacon, my son.”
Welcome home, Liz!!!
Inside/Outside Insights
LISTEN: Check out "Survivor Chronicles: Free Them All," a new podcast by Survived & Punished NY. One of the episodes will feature writer Sara Kielly's story about incarceration as a trans and criminalized survivor of domestic violence.
PRE-ORDER: ENDING ISOLATION: A CASE AGAINST SOLITARY CONFINEMENT, co-written by Christopher Blackwell and Debbie Zalesne, is on pre-order now. Stay tuned for details about the book release and impact tour this fall!
READ: A Columbia Journalism Review story breaks down the censorship, threats, and stints in solitary that are among acts of retaliation prison reporters face. The story mentions and pictures writers we support, including Jeremy Busby.
KUDOS: Congrats to the Haymarket Books 2025 Writing Freedom Fellows! We are honored to work with two of this year's fellows, Elizabeth Hawes and Carla J. Simmons.
PRESS: Phillip Vance Smith, who writes from prison in North Carolina, was profiled by The College Hill Independent in a Q&A. And Kwaneta Harris is featured in the Everyday Injustice podcast, hosted by Davis Vanguard.
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The Appeal covers criminal justice issues from a progressive lens and pays $1/word.
The Progressive covers grassroots progressive politics, civil liberties, human rights, economic justice, a healthy environment, and a reinvigorated democracy. They pay $150 for essays.
Shado Mag, based in London, is a social justice publication that pays about $100 for essays.
The Texas Observer is an Austin nonprofit news organization known for fearless reporting.
Study + Struggle is publishing book reviews written by, edited by, and designed for incarcerated folks. They pay $200 per review.
The Marshall Project’s Life Inside series publishes weekly first-person essays from people who live or work in the criminal justice system. Pieces are between 1,000 and 1,400 words, and the rate per story is $200.
Solitary Watch is the premier source of news and information on solitary confinement in U.S. prisons and jails. They pay $250 for essays.
This American Life is a critically acclaimed, weekly radio program and podcast hosted by Ira Glass, exploring diverse aspects of contemporary American life through a mix of storytelling, journalism, and radio drama, often focusing on a specific theme per episode.
Rolling Stone is an American monthly magazine that focuses on music, politics, and popular culture.
Mellon makes grants to support communities through the power of the arts and humanities.
Prism is an independent, nonprofit newsroom led by and for people of color that launched the Right to Write Project to feature and pay incarcerated writers. They pay $.50 per word.
Inquest is a forum for advancing bold ideas to end mass incarceration in the United States. They pay $250 per essay.
Local News Matters is a nonprofit site bringing community coverage to the San Francisco Bay Area region so that the people, places and topics that deserve more attention get it.
Christianity Today is an evangelical Christian media magazine founded in 1956 by Billy Graham.
Mental Health is a Substack publication and newsletter that features interview with experts and activists, information on alternative modalities for mental health treatment, essays and journalism, and more.
Failed Architecture is a platform for architectural and spatial criticism, reconnecting architecture with the real world through an online magazine, events, podcasts, and more, focusing on challenging dominant narratives and exploring alternative realities.
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. The New York Times covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews.
Black Lipstick is a Substack publication featuring art and writing on makeup, mental health, mortality, queerness, sex, gender, nostalgia, pop culture, parenthood, weird dreams, dark thoughts, and everything else. They pay $150 per essay.