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Call for submissions: writing by artists who facilitate workshops inside

3 Apr

Project: An anthology of writing by artists who lead/teach (or previously led/taught) arts workshops inside correctional facilities. I seek submissions to construct a book proposal for publication.

Submission Guidelines + Instructions: Writing must be inspired by your prison work. It does not need to be directly connected to a specific event, experience, or person. Please indicate where names/identifying information has been changed.

  • Writing may be fiction, non-fiction, prose, poetry, experimental, non-traditional, un-categorizable.
  • You may submit as many pieces as you like (though not all are guaranteed inclusion in the anthology)
  • No length restrictions
  • Previously published material is acceptable, though un-published is preferred
  • .doc or .docx format, 12 pt. font
  • Email submissions + submission form to [email protected]

Submissions accepted now through September 15, 2015

About: My name is Leigh Sugar. I previously edited the Annual Anthology of Michigan Prisoner Creative Writing and facilitated creative writing workshops inside Michigan state prisons (both through the Prison Creative Arts Project). I have seen anthologies of writing by inmates, but never a collection of writing by the artists who facilitate or teach writing behind bars. My motivation to embark on this project stems from reflecting on how heavily my own writing has been influenced by my experience going inside prison, and not feeling like I have an outlet or a means by which to share that writing. I know I have this writing based on my time inside, so I know others must as well. It is critical that we strengthen our connections to each other and find ways to share our experiences and writing so we can expand the reach of the creative work that is generated in connection to the criminal justice system. I feel a real artistic resonance with other writers who bring their craft to prison and am committed to creating an entire collection of our writing. No contract yet exists for this volume; accepted abstracts will be organized into a book proposal, which I will then submit to publishers.

More information at http://www.correctionswriting.wordpress.com. Please circulate this call to any individuals or organizations you know involved in prison writing.

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Call for submissions - Transforming Grief: Personal and Communal Loss in the Work of Remaking the World

17 Feb

DEADLINE: March 25, 2015

Transforming Grief is rooted in the belief that the most potent stories—the ones most capable of informing critical shifts—are those that emerge from our hearts and lives, our learning and intervulnerability. This anthology will bring together writers from a variety of perspectives striving to unearth the transformative value of grief as an individual and collective experience through creative nonfiction.

The works in this collection will include compelling narratives and strong arguments that embody a deep exploration of ideas and themes, using concrete, lived personal and/or communal engagements with a spectrum of losses to illuminate larger questions about the sociopolitical forces at play in the world and our lives. As a body of writing and thinking, this compendium will also look at the ways in which grief is a natural response to present-day social systems, and can be mobilized to generate prefigurative experimentation in self-organization while reclaiming our imagination and humanity.

For more info, to contact us, and/or to submit a piece, see our Web site: http://transforming-grief.net/

Like our page to follow our work: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Transforming-Grief/774013049331958?ref=br_tf

Subscribe to our e-annoucements list for occasional updates on the anthology and related projects/events: http://transforming-grief.net/contact

Please help us to get the word out and circulate this call throughout your networks.

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Denney Juvenile Justice Center Poetry Workshop Launches New Blog, Downloadable Poetry Books

3 Apr

Denney Juvenile Justice Center Poetry Workshop founder and facilitator Mindy Hardwick writes,

In 2005, I volunteered to facilitate a poetry workshop with youth at Denney Juvenile Justice Center, located in Everett, Washington. Each week, I meet with a group of young men and a group of young ladies and we write poems which are based on the young people’s experience. As a part of the poetry workshop, we’ve published four books of the youth’s poetry. The poetry books are distributed, free of charge, to the youth themselves, as well as to others in the community. The youth always ask, “When is the next poetry book coming out? Is my poem in it?” The poetry workshop gives the teens an opportunity to express their stories and to be heard in their community. We are thrilled to have our new blog as a means for publishing the youth’s poetry, and hope the blog gives the teen writers another opportunity for their words to be heard.

Each Wednesday, one of the youth’s poems is published on the blog, and Hardwick blogs about the writing process for that particular poem on her personal blog. Here is the most recent excerpt from Hardwick’s blog, which is a fantastic resource for facilitators:

In the Eyes Of…

We have a new post on the Denney Poetry Blog. The poem, “In the Eyes of My Mother,” was first published in our second book of poetry, I Am From.

One of the poetry books I like to use with the teens in the detention center poetry workshop is, You Hear Me: Poems and Writing by Teenage Boys, edited by Betsy Franco. The collection includes poems, stories, and essays from boys across the country. Sometimes there can be a misconception that boys don’t talk about feelings, and what I’ve found working in the poetry workshop, is that boys can and do express their emotions. Very well!

In the collection, You Hear Me, there is a poem which is entitled, What I Am (In the Eyes of My Father). When I work with the teens at Denney, we read this poem, and then I ask them to think of someone important in their life. It could be a parent, teacher, best friend, girlfriend, or sibling. Or, it could be something larger such as a community, society, or world. I ask the question, who are you in the eyes of that person?

“In the Eyes of My Mother” is the response from one young man.

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NATION’S LARGEST EXHIBTION OF PRISON ART CELEBRATES 16 YEARS AT THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN

15 Mar

Image: Count Time by Alan Compo Norberg

The Prison Creative Arts Project (PCAP) presents the presents the Sixteenth Annual Exhibition of Art by Michigan Prisoners. Running from March 22 – April 6, 2011, the show will be held at the Duderstadt Center Gallery on the University of Michigan North Campus at 2281 Bonisteel Boulevard. Over the past 16 years, this nationally recognized show has grown to be the largest exhibition of prisoner art in the country. This year’s exhibition will include more than 300 works of art by over 200 artists, shedding light on the talents to be found behind prison walls and encouraging the public to take a second look.

Free and open to the public, the exhibition and surrounding educational events raise awareness and inspire dialogue between the incarcerated and the community at large. The public is invited to an opening reception on March 22nd from 5:30 - 8 p.m. in the gallery. Formerly incarcerated artists who have now re-entered into the community will speak about what the show means to those in prison.

Participating artists express gratitude to organizers and gallery visitors alike, stressing the show’s impact on their lives and the community at large. “I believe that your program gives the public a glimpse into the type of things that inspire even the most downtrodden of us all” writes one artist. “When people see our work, for a few moments, they forget that this work was done by a felon, but by another human being. A human being who has the same thoughts, emotions, and inspirations as they do, and for that one moment, a major social and political barrier is shattered.”

Despite limited resources, exhibition artists create work in a rich range of styles, mediums, and themes. Visitors return to the show year after year to glimpse art that is remarkable for its originality, beauty, and sheer expressive power. Last year, over 4,000 people came to the exhibit. Organizers expect even higher attendance this year and an exciting array of new work.

This year’s exhibition, curated by Professors Buzz Alexander, Janie Paul, and Jason Wright, exhibits work from over thirty prisons throughout the state. The curators, PCAP Administrators La Shaun phoenix Moore, and Sari Adelson, along with various volunteers travel to these prisons to hand select the strongest work from the artists. As a result of this annual event, the amount of art created in Michigan prisons has increased dramatically, and Michigan prison artists have become national leaders, inspiring others to create art behind bars.

The exhibition is to be accompanied by the release of the 3rd Annual Literary Review of Creative Writing by Michigan Prisoners. Readings of works from the publication by formerly incarcerated individuals are set to take place both in Ann Arbor and in the Detroit area, and youth from Detroit will join us for a dialog about what’s on their minds, as they speak about their lives and their communities.

Schedule of Events

Tuesday, March 22
Opening Reception
Join the Prison Creative Arts Project as we celebrate the opening of the 16th Annual Exhibition of Art by Michigan Prisoners. Formerly incarcerated artists, and Curators Buzz Alexander, Janie Paul, and Jason Wright, will address visitors to the gallery at 6:15 p.m. Free and open to the public.
5:30-8:00 PM, Duderstadt Center Gallery, 2281 Bonisteel Blvd., Ann Arbor MI

Thursday, March 24
Keynote Address- Kathy Boudin
Join the Prison Creative Arts Project, join us as Kathy Boudin, Professor at Columbia University, delivers a keynote speech addressing the history of mass incarceration, the current incarceration crisis in the United States, and the directions that need to be taken to make a difference in a talk entitled, “Women and Men; Overcoming Dehumanization, Becoming Agents of Change”.
7:30-9:00 PM, Vandenberg Room, Michigan League, 911 N. University, Ann Arbor, MI

Saturday, March 26
Film Screening: All-Day
All-Day is a 3-D animation/experimental documentary video project, made in collaboration with Justin Gibson, who in 2000 was convicted of the murder of his grandmother and was sentenced to life at a Michigan State Correctional Facility. The project aims to tell his fictional interpretation of the story of his crime and ensuing incarceration.
3:00-5:00 PM, Room 3222 Angell Hall, 435 S. State Street, Ann Arbor MI

Sunday, March 27
Artist Panel
Join us as a panel of formerly incarcerated artists discuss works in this year’s show and the process of creating art behind bars. The event is moderated by U of M’s School of Art and Design Professor, Janie Paul.
3:00-5:00 PM Duderstadt Center Gallery, 2281 Bonisteel Blvd., Ann Arbor MI

Tuesday, March 29
Michigan Forecast: The New State Regime
Join us for a panel discussion about the challenges facing the Michigan Department of Corrections’ with a new governor and Republican officials in office. Panelists will include a representative from the American Friends Service Committee, a U of M Professor and two U of M graduate students.
7:30-9:00 PM, Michigan Room, Michigan League, 911 N. University, Ann Arbor, MI

Thursday, March 31
Families of the Incarcerated Panel – What Family and Home Really Mean
Join the Prison Creative Arts Project along with a panel returning citizens and family members of incarcerated artists discuss the transition of being home after being inside, the differences between prison families and their families at home and the idea of family reunification in this powerful event.
7:30-9:00 PM, Vandenberg Room, Michigan League, 911 N. University, Ann Arbor, MI

Monday, April 4
Anthology of Creative Writing by Michigan Prisoners Release Celebration
This anthology, titled I’ve Somehow Swallowed the Night, showcases poetry, short stories, and essays from extraordinary prison writers across the state of Michigan. At the celebration, we will have the honor of hearing many of the pieces featured in the book read by either the artists themselves or their families. We will have the opportunity to celebrate the phenomenal writing as well as our community of artists on the inside and out. The event is free and open to all.
7-9 pm, University of Michigan Museum of Art, Helmut Stern Auditorium, 525 South State Street Ann Arbor, MI

Wednesday, April 6
Closing Reception
5:30 – 8:00 PM, Duderstadt Center Gallery, 2281 Bonisteel Blvd., Ann Arbor MI

Exhibition hours are 10 a.m. - 7 p.m. Tuesday - Saturday, and 12 p.m. - 6 p.m. Sunday - Monday.

PCAP Poster ’11

Book Announcement: Reading Is My Window

30 Nov

Meg Sweeney, Associate Professor of English and Afroamerican and African Studies at the University of Michigan, has authored a new book! Reading Is My Window is about incarcerated women’s reading practices. The book is available from the University of North Carolina Press.

Author Meg Sweeney writes to the Prison Arts Coalition about her book:

Drawing on extensive individual interviews and group discussions with ninety-four women imprisoned in Ohio, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania, Reading Is My Window explores how women prisoners use the limited reading materials available to them to come to terms with their pasts, negotiate their present challenges, and reach toward different futures. The book offers the first analysis of incarcerated women’s reading practices, and it foregrounds the voices and experiences of African American women, one of the fastest growing yet least acknowledged populations in U.S. prisons.

Reading Is My Window situates contemporary prisoners’ reading practices in relation to the history of reading and education in U.S. penal contexts, explores the material dimensions of women’s reading practices, and analyzes the modes of reading that women adopt when engaging with three highly popular genres (narratives of victimization, African American urban fiction, and self-help and inspirational books). The book also discusses the many kinds of encounters fostered by book discussions in prisons, and it offers detailed portraits of two imprisoned readers, each of which weaves together the woman’s life narrative and her own description of her reading practices.

Click here to read a review of Reading Is My Window by Alyssa Vincent for Feminist Review.

Posted by Emily Harris

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The Concrete Rose Garden

25 Mar

by Julia Taylor

For the past five months I have been writing with a group of women at the Otter Creek Correctional Facility in Wheelright, KY. Located in an historic coal mining camp town, the prison was built as a source of jobs and is run as a private prison by the Corrections Corporation of America (CCA). After the consolidation of two local high schools, the CCA facility is now the largest employer in the town and has contracts to house women from Kentucky and Hawaii.

One of the women in the group wrote: “They built a prison inside an old mine—a hole where men took out what they wanted and threw back in what they didn’t.” Many of the women come from Kentucky, some from the Eastern Kentucky coalfields where the prison is located, and others from the urban centers of Louisville and Lexington. Still others flew across the ocean from Hawaii for their incarceration.

We, as a group, have explored what it means to call a place home, and how we, as writers, fit into that picture. While challenging each other artistically these over these months, we have also struggled to understand our identity as writers. I proposed to the group that I might not include my writing in the anthology (though I write as part of the group every week, and read publicly at our reading). I felt that it wasn’t appropriate to include my own work in an anthology of writing “by incarcerated women.” The group became furious. How dare I separate myself from them now, after we had spent these months breaking down those barriers. “You’re just as bad as everyone else,” one woman exclaimed. “I thought that you were past putting labels on us.”

I was struck by their words and felt humbled. How dare I. We decided to write the introduction to The Concrete Rose Garden together, as a group of women writers, who just happen to gather in the visiting room of a prison every week.

Drawing by Iwalani Meyer

Check out the Thousand Kites Project’s website to download “The Concrete Rose Garden.”

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PCAP Announces a full Schedule of Events for the 14th Annual Exhibition of Art by Michigan Prisoners

4 Mar

"Halloween: Fall Fun-Time" by Gary English

For 14th Annual Exhibition press release see this post.

Tuesday, March 24
Opening Reception
Join the Prison Creative Arts Project (PCAP) as we celebrate the opening of the 14th Annual Exhibition of Art by Michigan Prisoners. Formerly incarcerated artists, and Curators Buzz Alexander, Janie Paul, and Jason Wright, will address visitors to the gallery at 6:15 p.m. Free and open to the public.
5:30 - 8:00 p.m., Duderstadt Center Gallery, 2281 Bonisteel Blvd., Ann Arbor, MI

Wednesday, March 25
Bill Ayers
 Join us as Bill Ayers, Distinguished Professor of Education at the University of Illinois and Chicago Citizen of the Year, talks about the role of the arts, education, and activism in shaping our collective destinies. Bill Ayers is the author of several books on education and social justice and is the founder of Chicago’s Small Schools Workshop and the Center for Youth and Society.
7:30 p.m., Rackham Amphitheatre, 915 E. Washington St. Ann Arbor, MI

Thursday, March 26
The Michigan Review of Prisoner Creative Writing: Book Release and Celebration
PCAP and the 14th Annual Exhibition of Prisoner Art present an evening in celebration of PCAP’s first ever Michigan Review of Prisoner Creative Writing. Join us with guest editor and prisoner writing advocate and teacher Joseph Bathanti to enjoy selections of the beautiful and unabashed poetry, prose, and fiction of Michigan’s incarcerated writers. We come together on March 26th to celebrate and honor the talent and vison of these hidden voices with readings by recently released writers whose work has been featured.
7:00pm, Anderson Room, Michigan Union, 530 S. State St. Ann Arbor, MI

Friday, March 27
The Art of Social Change
Malaquias Montoya, a Professor at the University of California, Davis and renown Chicano artist, will present his latest exhibit, “Premeditated: Meditations on Capital Punishment.” This exhibit was inspired by Malaquias’s longstanding commitment to speaking out on behalf of those who are disadvantaged and oftentimes silenced by society. His art reveals the underlying racial and class injustices that are carried out through state sponsored execution, and his images are purposefully graphic so as to awaken audiences from their anesthetized response to capital punishment. In all of his work Malaquias sees it has his responsibility to comment on the culture of his time and create social change through art.
7:30 p.m., Henderson Room, Michigan League, 911 N. University Ave. Ann Arbor, MI

Saturday, March 28
Youth Speak
Please join us as a group of Detroit youth come together to discuss serious issues of urban living. It will be a facilitated dialogue with these bright young leaders about the challenges they face, and then an open discussion with all in attendance about these same challenges.
2:00 p.m., Room D, Michigan League, 911. N. University Ave. Ann Arbor, MI

Sunday, March 29
Artists Talkback
Join us as a panel of formerly incarcerated artists discuss works in this year’s show and the process of creating art behind bars. The event is moderated by U of M’s School of Art and Design Professor, Janie Paul.
3-5 PM Duderstadt Center Gallery, 2281 Bonisteel Blvd., Ann Arbor MI

Wednesday, April 1
Tough Choices: A Look at the Complexities of the Michigan Parole and Commutation Board
Join us for a conversation about the process by which the Michigan Parole and Commutation Board reach decisions determining whether a prisoner is ready to return to society.
4:00 p.m., Anderson Room A/B, Michigan Union, 530 S. State St. Ann Arbor, MI

Monday, April 6
Invisible Women: The Crisis of Incarcerated Mothers
Silja Talvi, investigative journalist, and author of Women Behind Bars: The Crisis of Women in the US Prison System, and Melissa Radcliff, Executive Director of Our Children’s Place, a residential initiative allowing young children to live with their incarcerated mothers, join us to discuss the intersections of incarceration and motherhood.
7:30pm, Rackham Assembly Hall, 915 E. Washington St., Ann Arbor, MI

Wednesday, April 8, 2009
Closing Reception
5:30 - 8:00 p.m., Duderstadt Center Gallery, 2281 Bonisteel Blvd., Ann Arbor

Exhibition Dates
March 24 - April 8, 2009

Gallery Hours
Tuesday-Saturday 10am-7pm
Sunday-Monday 12pm-6pm

For further information
call 734-647-7673 or email [email protected]

*Watch a preview of Acts of Art: The Prison Creative Arts Project at:
http://www.michigantelevision.org

www.prisonarts.org

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