Writer, activist, and prison abolitionist Keeonna Harris’ new memoir Mainline Mama (Amistad, 2025) details the impact that her boyfriend’s 22 year prison sentence had on her life. After becoming a “mainline mama” – a term referring to a parent raising a child alone while their partner is incarcerated – Harris learned to navigate the overwhelming United States prison industrial complex and became an advocate for the predominantly Black and brown mainline mamas like her.
In conversation with PEN America’s Prison and Justice Writing Editorial Consultant Juliana Luna, Harris explains how she had to adapt her language to fit within the carceral system, collective parenting, and what a supportive system looks like to her. (Bookshop, Barnes & Noble)
Your memoir begins with definitions of “mainline,” “mama,” and “mainline mama” incorporating both classical definitions and prison slang. How does naming and distinguishing help process these complicated roles and experiences for those grappling with the carceral system?
Naming is critical to the work because it helps to identify what hurts you, but I want to complicate the way we typically think of prisons. Using slang and classical definitions reminds us of the nuance of every day; the names that we commonly use reminds us of connection and familiarity. Prison is such an ominous institution, and we tend to think of bars and buildings, but we use the same slang and words in the streets. It’s easier to distance ourselves from the prison if we just think of it as a building, but it affects all of us. Blending the definitions reminds us that words have a power to distance or connect depending on how we use them, so I wanted to give readers a very clear reminder: Just because you’re not in the building, you are still impacted by the prison system.
You texture the book with many modes of speech such as dialogue, lists, and letters. Some letters are to past selves and some sent through the surveilled prison mail. While all from you, the voice and language can vary. In what ways was voice, and the variation of voice, a challenge or catalyst in your writing process?
Voice and the variation were a huge catalyst in the writing process, because my past informs my present and my future. For me it was very intentional to write in that way, to honor these versions of myself. I wanted to give voice to the younger version of myself; to interpret my experiences and express what it meant in words and thoughts that I hadn’t been able to articulate at that time. There’s always a tension in the book, between the heart and the mind—the letters and internal thoughts, what the heart wants and what the brain knows. I tried to translate that into the page, because I’m looking back on all these stories with more lived experience and understanding of what’s going on or what’s going to happen, but I still wanted to be true to what I felt in my heart and understood in my head.
As someone who has worked with incarcerated people for years now, I continue to see prisons’ specific lexicon, rules, and coded ways of communicating. What are some of the most surprising ways you’ve had to adapt your language in prison-related spaces?
For me it was more about tone than language. If I’m having to talk to a prison officer, I’m putting on charm. I felt very clearly how the correctional officers at the prisons I’ve visited have this very low expectation and devaluation of anyone who comes to visit. I was fortunate to have privileges like education and degrees and experience working in corporate America, so I know how to talk to a whole range of people. It was very disarming to the COs to hear me talking to them in a different, almost customer service voice—like I’m doing something for them, when I’m really trying to get them to do their jobs, and help me.
Prison is such an ominous institution, and we tend to think of bars and buildings, but we use the same slang and words in the streets. It’s easier to distance ourselves from the prison if we just think of it as a building, but it affects all of us.
You write “visitation, for the state, is a ‘privilege.’” The book details moments where you had to “perform” a certain way for correctional officers to ensure visits go smoothly. Did writing this book allow you to drop the performance when recounting those moments, or was the writing process another kind of negotiation?
Writing this book was truth telling. I finally got to drop the performance. I didn’t feel like I had to sugarcoat anything in ways that I would have to if I was dealing with the state in that way. I’m at the point in my life where I’m about radical truth telling, so I’m not interested in making things seem nice or palatable.
The book often highlights how caregiving extends beyond traditional family structures. You write Mo’nique, Raye, Michelle, and you “were living the life as mainline mamas. We took care of one another and leaned on one another.” How did this collective shift your understanding of motherhood and parenting?
I’ve always understood the ideas and practice behind collective mothering and parenting, because it’s how I was raised. I just never had a name for it. The formula that I was used to was from my blood family and my community. When I got to prison it made me realize how much we all need each other, and how we enact this same kind of care work. The sisterhood that we formed was another version of us mothering each other, even if we didn’t necessarily think about it like parenting or put it into words with each other. It was a mutual understanding. Mothering is a practice that we engage in, sometimes without thinking, even though it can be very intentional.
Throughout Mainline Mama, love takes many forms—romantic love, the love between friends, familial love, all of which find resilience against a system working against them. Looking back, how has your definition of love evolved, and what does love look like for you today?
I lead with love in my life, the world is hard enough as it is. Love is what’s going to save us. All of us are searching for love, and that I don’t think ever really changes. But what love meant for me definitely changed. Love doesn’t mean dishonoring yourself. Love does not cause you harm. Love is not about being a martyr. I used to believe that if it’s not hard, it’s not real love. Going to the ends of the earth and sacrificing your own self is a noble ideal, but that’s not what love actually requires. Today love looks like mutuality—showing up every day as my best self for those that love me and I love back.
I’m at the point in my life where I’m about radical truth telling, so I’m not interested in making things seem nice or palatable.
Mainline Mama doesn’t follow a strictly linear timeline—memories unfold organically. How did you decide on the structure of the book? Did it change as you wrote?
For me at the inception of the book, I knew it wasn’t going to be a linear timeline. First because I think that gets boring. The book is about resilience, and joy, and dealing with prison. Putting everything in a linear fashion doesn’t bring all that together for me. The stories I wanted to tell didn’t make sense in chronological order. Second, I like to play with time and space in the work, because dealing with the prison messes with your perception of space and time. Visiting prisons is mind-bending—some of it on purpose to disorient you, second guess yourself. I wanted the book to capture that feeling of time travel as you jump back and forth between the prison and the free world.
You’re deeply involved in activism and community work while also writing and sharing your personal story. How do you balance these roles, and do you find that writing serves as an extension of your activism, or do they sometimes feel like separate pursuits?
For me they’re all one and the same. Writing is activism. Working with an organization on an event, doing some community work, writing about my experiences; they’re all just different modes of reaching people. The idea is to connect with people in different ways, and as many people as you can. You can’t just pick just one lane.
Prisons remove people from society and throw them away, and expect people to treat them as such. And it’s contagious, now anyone who touches the prison gets thrown away too. We aren’t taught about mistakes, and learning, or listening. We give children grace and at some point it shifts and we just start throwing people away.
Many institutions such as schools and social services are exposed in your writing for their neglect to support Black women and mothers. From your perspective, what would a truly supportive system look like?
A truly supportive system would start with listening. That’s the critical thing. We, Black women, have ideas that can change the world. Listening without being begrudging or the savior or expecting a custodian. Seeing people for their whole humanity as a mutual conversation, rather than being told what to do, standing up for us when we are talking, and not bringing us to the table only when everything has gone to shit and watching us clean up.
Your work highlights the deep, personal impact of incarceration on families and communities. For readers who are moved by Mainline Mama, what are concrete steps they can take to support incarcerated people, their loved ones, and the fight for prison reform?
I love making lists, but unfortunately there’s no step-by-step list. I think it starts with seeing the humanity in everyone, and not treating people as disposable. Prisons remove people from society and throw them away, and expect people to treat them as such. And it’s contagious, now anyone who touches the prison gets thrown away too. We aren’t taught about mistakes, and learning, or listening. We give children grace and at some point it shifts and we just start throwing people away. We need to learn to see people for who they are and not just for their mistakes. Everything is so connected, and one small thing can change the whole course of someone’s life. People need to remember how close the carceral system is—it could happen to any one of us. I think it starts with mindset and feelings; people need to shift their perspective about prisons and remember that they aren’t just buildings, they are places where people are forced and kept for choices they make in their life. We don’t have to love or respect the choices, but we still need to remember and treat them as people.
Keeonna Harris is a writer, storyteller, mother of five, prison abolitionist, activist, and academic, born and raised in Watts and other parts of South Central Los Ange – les. Her work focuses on health disparities and radical organizing for women connected to systems of mass incarceration, mothering, and community building as acts of radical defiance against carceral institutions. Harris has received several honors, including a 2018–2019 PEN America Writing for Justice Fellowship, a 2021 Tin House Summer Residency, a 2023 Baldwin For The Arts Residency, and a 2023 Hedgebrook Fellowship as the 2023 Edith Wharton Writer-in-Residence. She is a 2024 Hay – market Writing Freedom Fellow and a postdoctoral scholar at the University of Washington in the Department of Health Systems and Population Health. She is developing the Borderland Project, a mental health and community support system for women forced to navigate carceral institutions to maintain connections with incarcerated persons. She lives in Seattle.
