Yvette M. Louisell

Yvette M. Louisell grew up in Kalamazoo, Michigan and Cincinnati, Ohio. She was incarcerated at age seventeen and is currently serving year twenty-four of a life-without-parole sentence in Iowa.


Articles by Yvette M. Louisell

Prison and Justice Writing
Tuesday May 10

How to Survive in Prison

Find out your boyfriend got married. Spend as much time in the yard as possible. Learn to fit in. Become someone’s girlfriend. Stop thinking about the outside world. Join a lawsuit against the prison. Stop thinking that being good is going to get you anywhere.

Prison and Justice Writing
Tuesday June 24

Prison Eulogies

Prison Eulogies The ones who died never mattered much except in here where the stories never end because they’re too real Michelle who beat her girl until she got out and got her own self killed Stella who laughed & laughed until that last hit hit her vein Whoda thought a pulled tooth would make

Prison and Justice Writing
Thursday May 10

Fried Mushrooms

My mother is the kind of woman/ who buys fried mushrooms/ with her last five dollars/ on the way home/ from a listless day waiting/ for nothing/ at the welfare office

More Articles by Yvette M. Louisell

Prison and Justice Writing
Thursday June 23

The Glove Compartment