Caits Meissner

Director, Prison and Justice Writing

Caits Meissner is director of Prison and Justice Writing at PEN America. Before joining PEN America, Meissner was an integral team member in developing community arts and education programs for organizations such as Tribeca Film Institute, The Bronx Academy of Letters, Urban Arts Partnership, The Facing History School, and The Lower Eastside Girls Club. She has taught, consulted, and co-created extensively for over 15 years across a wide spectrum of communities with a focus on prisons, public schools, and college classrooms at The New School University and The City College of New York. From 2012–2014, Meissner served over 500 women worldwide in an original intensive online writing course that matured into live programming, including a reading series, courses for incarcerated youth and adult women, and state-sponsored cultural exchange in Malaysia. In 2017, Meissner reenvisioned the concept of book tour for her illustrated poetry collection Let It Die Hungry (The Operating System, 2016), pairing public speaking engagements with opportunities to work with incarcerated writers across the United States. Meissner holds an MFA in Creative Writing from the City College of New York, where she was awarded The Jerome Lowell DeJur Prize in Creative Writing, an Educational Enrichment Award, and The Teacher-Writer Award. She is deeply invested in the transformative, restorative, and change-making capacities of imagination and creativity.


Articles by Caits Meissner

Tuesday April 4

The PEN Ten: An Interview with Rushi Vyas

I’d rather tend toward over-sharing than under-sharing. I’d rather tend toward more understanding than less.

Thursday October 20

The PEN Ten: An Interview with Cheryl Boyce-Taylor

It has always been my intention to give my readers truth and offer them permission to be truthful without judgment in their own lives and work.

Thursday June 2

The PEN Ten: An Interview with Ada Limón

“I want to be as free as anyone to write what they want to write and to be human in all those beautiful, necessary, and urgent ways.”

More Articles by Caits Meissner

Wednesday May 25

Introducing Mahogany L. Browne’s “Quilted Steel: A Choreopoem”

Monday November 16

Works of Justice Podcast: Actor, Mentor, and Mother Dunasha Payne on Parenting Through the Walls and the Power of Theater

Tuesday June 23

Art in the Age of Mass Incarceration: A Dialogue with Nicole R. Fleetwood

Tuesday May 12

Temperature Check, Vol. Five: The Women’s Issue feat. Elizabeth Hawes and Keri Blakinger

Wednesday April 29

Temperature Check, Vol. Four feat. Vincent Schiraldi and Edward Ji

Wednesday April 15

Temperature Check, Vol. Three Feat. Jeremy Wilson and Lawrence Bartley

Wednesday April 8

Temperature Check, Vol. Two Feat. Justin Rovillos Monson & Josie Duffy Rice

Wednesday April 1

Works of Justice: Temperature Check, COVID-19 Behind Bars, Vol. One

Friday March 20

The PEN Ten: An Interview with Diana Marie Delgado

Tuesday December 3

Works of Justice: How to Write a Novel in a Month (While in Prison), Week 3

Friday November 15

Works of Justice: How to Write a Novel in a Month (While in Prison), Week 2

Friday November 1

Works of Justice: How to Write a Novel in a Month (While in Prison)

Thursday October 31

The PEN Ten: An Interview with the 2019 Writing for Justice Fellows

Thursday September 19

The PEN Ten: Jevon Jackson on Uncompromising Truth and What Makes for Good Narrative

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Tuesday July 23

Works of Justice: A Question of Justice

Wednesday July 10

Works of Justice: On Writing in Prison

Friday April 19

Works of Justice: An Interview with Writing for Justice Fellow Thomas Bartlett Whitaker