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In Good Company
IntroductionThere are many different ways to experience life. One of the coldest and loneliest is to be homeless.Imagine yourself standing on the street as the temperature drops. Lights come… More
Escort: Excerpts from a Prison Cell
I threw the book aside, stood up, stretched. I folded the two dust-ridden blankets the state issues and laid them at the foot of the bunk. I had been… More
Recipe For Prison Pruno
Take ten peeled oranges,Jarvis Masters, it is the judgment and sentence of this court,one 8 oz. bowl of fruit cocktail,that the charged information was true,squeeze the fruit into a… More
Walker’s Requiem
I could see myself in the dark mahogany coffin. How I had gotten there and why was something I couldn't remember. I could hear the hum of an organ… More
In the Big Yard
Rumors abound Inmate So-and-So done gotta parole date.Last Monday, but sucker don't evenKnow his woman done run off with "sweet Cadillac Willie"Who spent her welfare check on gasoline an'… More
House passes Freedom to Read Amendment
In a vote that sends a clear message to the Bush Administration that Section 215 of the USA PATRIOT Act needs to be amended to protect Americans' right to… More
PEN Calls for the Permanent Release from Prison of Journalist Akbar Ganji
Now that Ganji has been released from Evin Prison, we urge that his freedom from incarceration be made permanent and that he not be returned to prison next week.… More
International PEN statement on the recent events in Uzbekistan
International PEN, the world association of writers, is alarmed by recent days' events in Uzbekistan and calls for a lifting of the clamp down on the media reporting from… More
Writers Condemn Conviction of Poet, Two Other Reform Advocates In Saudi Arabia
PEN, the international writers’ organization dedicated to defending writers and freedom of expression around the world, reacted with shock to the announcement that Saudi poet Ali Al-Domaini has been… More