Prison Diary

How can I communicate what it is like to get arrested when you have one four month old daughter and a second daughter on the way, and then be… More

Peers

I’d fail anyway. We smoke almost every day. I still feel the last time from this afternoon, a little bit. There’s no escape ... I might as well go… More

Of Ash and Bone

Even the legend of the two self-garroters varied according to the storyteller. In some versions the men were star-crossed lovers who died tragically, side by side. In others the… More

Painting the Sunset

It’s said that too many cooks spoil the broth and two women under one roof is one too many. It couldn’t have been easy for my Aunt Margie to… More

The High Desert Sessions

Time rather than education is the great leveler, Li. Eventually you’ll come around to my way of thinking, everyone will. You are definitely on the wrong side of history,… More

Midnight at the Manatee

Thirty-nine inches from tip to tip, / it must have weighed, I bet, almost forty pounds. / You teased me as we passed another angler, offering / to… More

LP’s and Girlz

Oh, SHE was All Too Real my friendz and beloved readerz because I tell you she literally bumped elbows with me as we both hunted for those heavenly 12-inch… More

Prison Writing Award Winners: 2012-2013

Every year, hundreds of imprisoned writers from around the country submit poetry, fiction, nonfiction, and dramatic works to PEN America’s Prison Writing Contest, one of the few outlets of free… More

Minutes Before Six

“You are going to have a rather interesting map of what a person goes through during the years preceding an execution. He ruminated, “Sometimes I think that the missing… More