Prison & Justice Writing
For more than four decades, PEN America’s Prison Writing Program has amplified the writing of thousands of imprisoned writers by providing free resources, skilled mentors, and audiences for their writing. We are proud to share our deepening commitment to confronting our era of mass incarceration with the launch of the 2018 PEN America Writing For Justice Fellowship. Read below for more information about our initiatives.
For information on writing programs in prison across the United States, click here to access our living document database.
Writing for Justice Fellowship
The PEN America Writing For Justice Fellowship will commission six writers—emerging or established—to create written works of lasting merit that illuminate critical issues related to mass incarceration and catalyze public debate. Applications open on April 15. Learn more »
Prison Writing Program
Founded in 1971, the PEN Prison Writing Program believes in the restorative, rehabilitative and transformative possibilities of writing. We provide hundreds of imprisoned writers across the country with free writing resources, skilled mentors, and audiences for their work. Our program supports free expression, and encourages the use of the written word as a legitimate form of power. We strive towards an increasingly integrative approach, aiming to amplify the voices and writing of imprisoned people to expand beyond the silo of prison, and identity of prisoner.
Click here to download a printable PDF copy of our offerings.
Handbook for Writers in Prison
PEN’s Handbook for Writers in Prison features detailed guides on the art of writing fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and screenplays—an invaluable resource for any writer. Each year, thousands of free copies are sent to incarcerated men and women.
Annual Prison Writing Contest
Every year hundreds of imprisoned writers from around the country submit poetry, fiction, nonfiction, and dramatic works to PEN’s Prison Writing Contest, one of the few outlets of free expression for the country’s incarcerated population.
Mentorship Program
Consisting of more than 250 mentors working with close to 250 incarcerated writers, PEN America’s Prison Writing Mentorships continues to be the most interactive and engaging project in the Prison Writing Program.
The Prison Writing Contest Prizes are sponsored by the generous support of the Greenburger Center for Social & Criminal Justice.
Programming for PEN America’s Prison Writing Program is made possible in part by generous funding from the Stavros Niarchos Foundation.
Read Award-Winning Works from the PEN Prison Writing Contest
The Target
Three days before Tuesday, I told him. He bought box cutters and ducktape. My father dropped his face into his Wilt Chamberlain hands. The items gave my story the… More
Bringer of Fire
“Bugs? You got me for fucking bugs?!” He savagely backhanded me and I fell to the floor, the taste of copper in my mouth. Standing over me he screamed… More
What She Knows
She gathers an empty bottle washed / ashore and tosses it far to sea. / It sinks, fills, becomes ocean, / I see through ages—it settles / by a… More
Kite to Kierkegaard
But there is no wisdom / That needs to be shouted / Whispering it blisters / A capriccio in braille. More
The Destitute
The / ceiling hovers like a heavy mist, / dark and putrid, thick and barbed, / chocking any head held high. More
Chessman’s Lunch
I poke at my salad, / sip water from a plastic cup / my corner fiefdom overrun now by strangers / a compromised rook / removed from the board More
Tell Me the Story Again About the Frogs, and the Seeds
Yes, yes all the plants are dead. / And all the animals bigger than scarab beetles; / but the seeds have been waiting in the ground. / When the… More
Bleak Housing & Black Americans
The United States seems not merely to tolerate but actually to revel in inflicting barbaric human degradation upon prisoners—not just for months or years, but for decades and lifetimes... More
Alert Us
To any writer artist who is at risk, or is in need of assistance, including those denied entry into the U.S. as a result of the latest Trump Administration travel ban. 
