Writing and Painting Ourselves Into Society
14 new stories + new date for our Berkeley art exhibit
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Jessie Milo, Ice Cream, 2024
In the midst of summer, in which many folks in our community are suffering from extreme temperatures without access to air conditioning, the creative work continues. Do not miss the powerful reported stories, essays and poetry from writers in Tennessee, Washington, North Carolina, California, Georgia and Texas. We also had first-time bylines in Texas Observer, Bolts and Mother Jones!
And in our home base of California, we are preparing to launch Painting Ourselves Into Society, curated by O. Smith from San Quentin, at Berkeley Art Center with new dates. The exhibition run is between September 21st, 2024 and January 12th, 2025, with an opening reception scheduled for Saturday September 21st, between 2:00-5:00 P.M. Public programs will be announced on our website and social media.
In the meantime, enjoy a sneak peek of one of several Jessie Milo paintings that will be included in the exhibit. Jessie's paintings explore what it means to be a dad from prison. We’re sending everyone love, connection, freedom and ice cream, for the rest of the summer. See you in September.
NOTE: Empowerment Avenue is taking a rest week between September 1st-6th.
Our Latest Work
This month, Tony Vick published an important piece for Truthout1 about the importance of volunteers coming into prisons. "During my decades behind bars, I’ve watched community volunteers help fight the invisibilization that props prisons up."
Then for Filter Mag2, Tony Vick interviewed Frank De Palma, who co-wrote the book Never to Surrender! 22 Years in Solitary—The Battle for My Soul in a US Prison. “Without dental care, he was left to pull out his own abscessed teeth. Without a mattress, he slept on steel and concrete.”
Also for Filter: Following his reporting on how prison smoking bans created a health crisis, Jonathan Kirkpatrick penned two related pieces for about how the iron law of prohibition works in prisons and how prison tobacco bans created a drug market.
By C. Dreams for Filter Mag is a piece about how ID verification is anti-trans. "After two name changes and more than a decade in prison, I'd made sure I had every last document in order for tax season. But when I logged into the IRS online portal, it informed me that my identity had been flagged."
Phillip Vance Smith had a piece in Bolts Magazine3 about a North Carolina executive order directing state agencies to improve reentry services and fix the broken system. "People need help to survive after prison. I needed help."
The latest from Felix Sitthivong, who has written extensively about the threat of Cultural Awareness Groups by Washington Department of Corrections, is a piece for Prism4 detailing the importance of cultural awareness groups as places of healing but also the mislabeling of them as gangs. This story was also a winner of Solitary Watch’s Ridgeway Reporting Grant project.
Felix also wrote his On The Fence Line Column for International Examiner about divesting from the carceral state and investing in community: “I want us to ask ourselves, are we as a community content with one killer cop locked behind bars? And does this conviction actually do anything to prevent anything like this from happening again? Are we safe?”
Even behind bars, the poor are treated worse than those who have people outside sending them money, wrote Kwaneta Harris for Texas Observer5. ”If you’re not receiving money, you’ve got a target on your back.”
Has prison programming recovered from Covid? For Mother Jones6, Christopher Blackwell and Khawla Nakua examine the lingering effects of the pandemic on programs like classes on writing, health and fitness, and peer-to-peer self betterment.
Also from Christopher Blackwell, along with Sarah Sax, for Prism: While most prisons have no plan for how to deal with the kind of misery climate change inflicts—and will inflict on incarcerated people, decarceration is the solution.
For Freedom of the Press Foundation7, Jeremy Busby wrote about the scary impacts of social media bans in prison, which “not only violate incarcerated journalists’ constitutional rights to freedom of speech, they’re government overreaches that present a plethora of concerns for the public, including stopping real news stories in the name of security.”
Don’t miss D. Razor Babb’s incredibly candid piece for Capital & Main8 about "writing for redemption" and why he has written and reported throughout his prison sentence. “Here I was, a paraplegic and seemingly at the bottom of the food chain, and yet, through meditation and application of these principles, I saw only potential and limitless possibilities. I wanted to share that.”
From Tomiekia Johnson for Apogee Journal9, a poem titled Corner #4; 53 Years of Incarceration. Read the full poem here, but here’s how it begins:
Sitting cross-ankle on my bunk –– back to the cinder block wall.
Tears are in conflict, whether to come out, or hold place.
A peculiar war unfolds in corner #4 of my cell.
One high ranking elder croaking words of defense through pain…
Inside/Outside Insights
RSVP: On August 5, Catch Prison Policy, Christopher Blackwell, and Prisoners’ Legal Services of Massachusetts for a webinar about organizing legislative testimony from inside prison.
LISTEN: Film Comment Magazine featured Rahsaan Thomas, filmmaker and EA’s executive director, and Thanh Tran, filmmaker and organizer, share insights from their experience of directing films while in prison.
PRESS: KALW Public Media interviewed Rahsaan about Empowerment Avenue and our upcoming exhibit at the Berkeley Art Center.
GOOD NEWS: Heather Jarvis joins the latest cohort of Represent Justice fellows. It has been a joy to see her continue writing and organizing since coming home.
KUDOS: Friendly Signs, a short film written, produced, and directed by Rahsaan Thomas while he was incarcerated at San Quentin, won an Advocacy Award from the Superfest Disability Film Festival happening in October. The film is about the determination of an incarcerated man, who grew up signing with his Deaf older brother, to make San Quentin an inclusive space for Deaf people transferring in by seeking to start an American Sign Language class. Watch the trailer:
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Truthout is a nonprofit news source publishing on a wide range of social justice issues. They pay around $300-$375 for essays.
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.
Bolts is a digital magazine that covers the nuts and bolts of power and political change, from the local up. They pay $800 for reported stories.
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.
The Texas Observer is an Austin-based nonprofit news organization known for its independent, investigative reporting, narrative storytelling, and cultural criticism. They pay 50 cents per word.
Mother Jones is a nonprofit American progressive magazine that focuses on news, commentary, and investigative journalism on topics including the environment, politics, human rights, health, and culture.
Freedom of the Press Foundation is a nonprofit organization that protects, defends, and empowers public-interest journalism in the 21st century. They pay $400.
Capital & Main is an award-winning publication that reports from California on economic, political, and social issues. They pay $800 for reporting stories.
Apogee is a journal of literature and art that engages with identity politics, including but not limited to race, gender, sexuality, class, ability, and intersectional identities. They pay $150 for creative pieces.