inStudio is Open!
26 pieces sold, EA writers received 13 Stillwater Awards, + 10 new stories
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What a night! inStudio couldn’t have launched any better.
Wait, let us back up. Before inStudio had a name, we were talking about needing a physical space. Artists were sending their work to a PO box, pieces were living in our Visual Arts for Liberation Director Christine's home, and we knew we had to move toward building a more sustainable foundation. A place to store artworks for those inside and make them available to be seen and purchased regularly. We needed a place where people could sit down, learn, grow, and challenge each other. That was the vision.
We knew we wanted a co-designed space, one where the artist inside would be part of the inStudio cultural engine, co-owned, in constant conversation with the broader community. It felt right to launch with an exhibition centered around not only carcerality—not just prisons—but also the logic behind them: past, present, and future. That’s where This Distance Between: Traveling Beyond Count Time came in, sparked by the numbers that float around the subject of incarceration and anchored by Marcus’s Xcells piece, Warm, 2024. There is so much to say about numbers, counting, and carceral logic, and this exhibition begins to explore those relationships.
This was no easy journey. Rahsaan, Christine, and De’jon spent months searching for a space that felt like the right fit for what we were building. With a little bit of luck and good timing, we landed on 25th Street in Oakland, and the opening was confirmation that we chose right.
If you were there, you felt it. For four hours straight, there was a constant flow of familiar faces—friends, family, new friends, and people who were simply intrigued. Too many hugs, handshakes, smiles, words of upliftment, and congratulations to count. Small conversations that got interrupted or expanded by someone else pulling up and adding on. Speeches from the EA team, and what we also love to see: new people learning about what is possible when we center those inside and open our minds to being taught and led by those some of us have shut ourselves off from believing are equipped to do so.
We managed to sell more than 26 pieces, originals and prints, totaling more than $4,300. None of that is possible without our growing community and the recognition of all the creative talent locked away.
We were able to have a few people call in. But, on May Day of all days, the California Department of Corrections found a way to disrupt, shutting down phone services so many of the artists in the show couldn’t witness how their work was moving people. But we our best to make sure their work was acknowledged. What they set out to say was visible, and people were open, engaged, and genuinely connecting, which is exactly what we intended.
This opening was a major step in shaping narratives with consistency and intention. It’s easy to get lost in the work and the deadlines, but this night was one of those moments that refuels the mission. We are officially out of Christine’s home and into inStudio.
We extend an open invitation to everyone: If you’re in Oakland, come through First Fridays from 5 to 9 p.m. or reach out and we’ll find a time that works. If you have ideas for programs or partnerships, we are open to it. And to everyone inside, keep thinking, keep creating. We’ll be looking out for proposals for the next exhibition and programs.
Thank you to everyone who showed up and who continues to support, not just us, but most importantly, everyone inside.
Want to hear more? Read this article on our opening night by Agustín Maes for Midbrow.
Empowerment Ave News amplifies the work of incarcerated writers, filmmakers and artists. Subscribe to receive new posts and support the collective.
Upcoming Events
Bridging the Gap: Amplifying Incarcerated Voices
Later this month, we’ll be joining a two-day convening in Chicago focused on advancing the work of incarcerated writers and journalists. Hosted in collaboration with Empowerment Avenue writer alum Christopher Blackwell, now Executive Director of Look2Justice, alongside Haymarket Books and partners, the gathering will bring together organizers, journalists, and cultural workers from across the field.
Where: Chicago Teachers Union
When: Friday, May 29, 2026 (9:30 AM) – Saturday, May 30, 2026 (4:00 PM)
Our Executive Director Rahsaan Thomas and Writing for Liberation Co-Lead Joshua Strange will be in the room, contributing to conversations and connecting with others working to shift how stories from inside are supported, published, and shared.
This convening is a space to exchange ideas, build relationships, and strengthen the collective work of expanding access and visibility for incarcerated voices.
For more information and to register, check it out here.
Writer Spotlight: Xandan Gulley
The Writing for Liberation program supports more than 30 incarcerated journalists, essayists, and poets. Each month, we’ll be using this section of the newsletter to spotlight one of the writers we support. This month, we’re highlighting Xandan Gulley.
Here is more about what inspires Xandan to write:
As a victim of prolonged solitary confinement, I began writing for solace. Writing eventually became a refuge to keep me sane after more than a decade of solitary confinement. As a F2M transgender in a Texas prison, I am targeted for mistreatment, constantly repressed, held back, and restrained from being acknowledged and heard. I am persistently compressed, squeezed into submission by forced seclusion and captivity in solitary confinement.
Many incarcerated people have been silenced to conceal the depravity and perversion that is existential in Texas prisons. My sole intent of writing is to disseminate and promulgate. My goal initially was to just bring light to the hidden darkness behind barbed wire and enlighten society about the concealed injustices behind enemy lines of how incarcerated people are treated like animals and discarded like trash. Now, my objective is to inform the public about the inhumanity that exists. I was designed to be a whistleblower but my purpose is to aid the community in gaining knowledge about the hatred, corruption, and torture that occurs in Texas prisons. I enjoy writing because it gives me a voice—a voice that incarcerated people are often stripped of. I am the voice of the people, the people who are forgotten.
Our Latest Work
1. “Brooklyn Hogrell deserved the conditions that promoted survival,” writes Kwaneta Harris in this beautiful and tragic essay co-published by Prism1 and Solitary Watch2. “Instead, she was given conditions that promoted death.”
2. For The Marshall Project3, Kwaneta Harris also beautifully reflects about the experience of not having spent a single Mother’s Day with her daughter, who is now 19, while also navigating being a mother figure to the younger women she’s incarcerated alongside.
3. In his latest piece for Filter4, Tony Vick reports about a pair of proposed bills in Tennessee that would require the Tennessee Department of Correction to study the cost of body cams for “correctional officers and employees of prison contractors” at Trousdale Turner Correctional Center, the state’s largest prison, and file a report by July 1.
4. New EA writer Edwin Chavez worked with the editorial team at Solitary Watch to publish this powerful op-ed in The Los Angeles Times5 about the complexities of facing parole while knowing he would likely be deported to El Salvador, a country he hasn’t lived in since he was 12. Being deported and likely re-incarcerated in El Salvador’s infamous Terrorism Confinement Center would be a “virtual death sentence.”
5. The Alabama Solution, a documentary that “exposes overcrowding, violence, medical neglect, and suspicious deaths” in the Alabama Department of Corrections, was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature. In a piece for Inquest6, Jeremy Busby, Seth Stern, and Corinne Shanahan explore the ways the film’s whistleblowers, including EA writer Melvin Ray, have been retaliated against and the reasons “stories about prison conditions … should not be illegal.”
6. Steve Brooks writes for Truthout7 about the opening of a $239 million Scandinavian-styled learning center at San Quentin State Prison serving as an “expensive rebranding effort to make California prisons appear less inhumane.”
7. In a poignant op-ed for Vera8, Demetrius Buckley about how court-ordered fees and restitution can create or continue a cycle of intergenerational poverty that is inescapable for incarcerated people and their families.
8. Tony Vick strikes again with another Filter piece about how aging incarcerated people are denied dignity because many prisons aren’t wheelchair accessible.
9. If you care about the U.S. having a free and fair press, this op-ed by Jeremy Busby for Freedom of the Press Foundation9 about the dangers of Paramount Skydance acquiring Warner Bros. Discovery and the consolidation of media is well worth your time.
10. For Filter, Jimmy Iakovos writes about an alarming “one strike” bill being considered in Georgia that would make the penalty for a first-time violent felony a life sentence without the possibility of parole.
Inside/Outside Insights
1. CONGRATULATIONS: Congratulations Lyle and Meech! Haymarket Books and the Mellon Foundation have named EA writers Lyle C. May and Demetrius “Meech” Buckley as two recipients of the 2026 Writing Freedom fellowship. The Writing Freedom fellowship honors writers whose work “expands and reshapes the landscape of literature in the U.S.”
2. OPPORTUNITY: Solitary Watch is accepting submissions for their Voices from Solitary series, which features firsthand accounts from people surviving solitary confinement. Essays run between 1,000 and 1,500 words, with a 2,000 word maximum. Pieces can spotlight an injustice uniquely produced by solitary, highlight acts of resistance or moments of community, or depict how the system of solitary confinement operates.
Currently and formerly incarcerated writers can submit by mail to Solitary Watch, PO Box 11374, Washington DC 20008, Attn: Voices from Solitary, or by email at valerie@solitarywatch.org.
3. CONGRATULATIONS: EA writers received 13 awards in the 2025 Stillwater Awards, which recognize “excellence in prison journalism.”
Steve Brooks earned 4 awards:
1st Place – Best Collaboration
2nd Place – Best News
2nd Place – Best Feature
2nd Place – Prison Journalist of the Year
Aaron Edward Olson – 1st Place, Best News
Robert Lee Williams – 1st Place, Best Feature
Catherine LaFleur – 3rd Place, Best Feature
Kwaneta Harris earned 2 awards:
2nd Place – Best Op-ed
2nd Place – Best Collaboration
Bryce Huber’s publication, 23and1 – 3rd Place, Best New Prison Publication
We are proud to see our writing community recognized at this level and to continue supporting their work reaching broader audiences.
4. OPPORTUNITY: Beyond Bars: A Journal of Literature and Art is accepting submissions from writers and artists who are incarcerated or otherwise impacted by the carceral system. Beyond Bars welcomes poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, and art across a wide range of forms including artwork, rap lyrics, and drama. Fiction and creative nonfiction may be up to 7,500 words, flash fiction up to 250 words, and poetry submissions may include up to 5 poems or 10 pages total. Submissions should include the writer or artist’s name on all manuscript pages, a brief bio, genre-specific details, and two to five sentences of context. Response time ranges from four weeks to four months or more.
Submit by email at beyondbarsmag@gmail.com or by mail to Beyond Bars, Georgia State University, Box 125, Suite 2440, 25 Park Place NE, Atlanta, GA 30303.
5. LISTEN: New EA writer Edwin Chavez appeared on Dusty Vision TV to discuss his journey from being kidnapped by rebels in El Salvador to spending 32 years in prison. Stories change realities, and we are honored to hear Edwin’s.
6. CONGRATULATIONS: Aaron Edward Olson, Felix Sitthivong, and Razor D. Babb each earned grants through Solitary Watch’s Ridgeway Reporting Project for Incarcerated Journalists to report on “various untold aspects of solitary.”
7. LISTEN: Xandan Gulley has joined Prison Radio as a columnist! You can listen to his weekly column on Prison Radio’s website or anywhere you listen to audio, including Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
Team Reflections
So many people showed up for our opening. The energy from that night has been lingering with us ever since. As many of you know, the work never stops. How do we follow up? What is our social media push to highlight what we did? What was good, what was bad? What is the next project? The list goes on.
But in a recent leadership meeting, we talked about taking some time to care for ourselves after such a push. Acknowledging the grief and work that individuals pour into a project, and that they deserve time to recoup, is something we are actively building into how we set expectations and cultivate a caring culture. Rest is essential, especially if you are working toward abolishing prisons.
We have accepted that this fight is long and arduous, so we have to build our own systems that are strategically preparing us for the long haul. Things we may have overlooked, something as simple as rest, are so easily skipped over. We refuse to miss those details that make us ready to show up for our community behind the walls.
Special thanks to Pete Belkin for his partnership in helping us design our title treatment, color palette, and inStudio front lockup. We appreciate you. And to Melissa Bolger, who assisted with leveling and framing the artwork, that finishing touch brought the detail and elevation we were looking for. So many people complimented how well the studio presented and lifted the work of every artist we were able to accommodate. And a big thank you to Agustín Maes from Midbrow for our first press coverage of inStudio. We appreciate you helping us share this work with a wider audience.
We cannot wait for everything that is coming up. Stay connected, everyone.
In community,
EA Team
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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.
Solitary Watch is the premier source of news and information on solitary confinement in U.S. prisons and jails. They pay $250 for essays.
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.
Filter’s mission is to advocate through journalism for rational and compassionate approaches to drug use, drug policy, and human rights. They pay $300 per essay.
The Los Angeles Times, the largest metropolitan daily newspaper in the country, has been covering Southern California for more than 144 years.
Inquest is a forum for advancing bold ideas to end mass incarceration in the United States. They pay $250 per essay.
Truthout is a nonprofit news source publishing on a wide range of social justice issues. Submissions are offered gratis unless otherwise stated.
Vera is the blog of The Vera Institute, a group of advocates, researchers, and activists working to end mass incarceration. It is unclear how much they pay for stories.
Freedom of the Press Foundation is a nonprofit organization that protects press freedom and documents free press violations in the United States. It is unclear how much they pay.
So cool! Excited to have discovered y'alls work today. I write a Substack highlighting local arts and community events in the region each month. Would love to include your org in the future!