Sophia Ramirez

Fellow, Prison and Justice Writing

Sophia Ramirez is a fellow with the Prison and Justice Writing Program at PEN America. She recently graduated from Wilton High School in Connecticut and will attend Yale University next fall. Passionate about writing and eager to support others in their own storytelling, she joined the Prison Creative Arts Project as a senior, reviewing the submitted poetry, fiction, and essays of incarcerated people. She is now taking a gap year to further explore and contribute to the ongoing conversation about criminal justice reform, art, and where those intersect. In her free time, she loves playing board games with her family, learning the harmonica, and writing short stories.


Articles by Sophia Ramirez

Blue text on a light blue background reads: i am climbing the stairs that i create with these words all the way to the top, with each line indented to resemble ascending stairs.
Prison and Justice WritingWriter OpportunitiesWriting as Craft
Thursday July 21

Introducing I am climbing the stairs that I create with these words all the way to the top: A NaPoWriMo Zine

PEN America’s Sophia Ramirez introduces our newest Prison Writing poetry zine, “I am climbing the stairs that I create with these words all the way to the top,” for NaPoWriMo.

Book cover of Torn Apart by Dorothy Roberts featuring two hands holding, next to a photo of the author with glasses and long hair, on a yellow background with a PEN America logo and butterfly design.
Prison and Justice Writing
Wednesday June 15

Benevolent Terror: Dorothy E. Roberts on Reimagining the Child Welfare System

Sophia Ramirez reviews Dorothy E. Roberts’ new book Torn Apart: How the Child Welfare System Destroys Black Families—and How Abolition Can Build a Safer World (Basic Books, 2022).

Book cover of Becoming Abolitionists by Derecka Purnell next to a smiling woman with long braids and red lipstick, in front of pink flowers, with a yellow PEN America logo and butterfly graphic in the background.
Prison and Justice Writing
Thursday April 21

Necessary Unlearning: On Derecka Purnell’s ‘Becoming Abolitionists: Police, Protests, and the Pursuit of Freedom’

Prison and Justice Writing Postgraduate Sophia Ramirez Fellow reviews Derecka Purnell’s “Becoming Abolitionists: Police, Protests, and the Pursuit of Freedom.”