Arts Learning
ACHF Arts Education
Provide creative writing workshops to 60 inmates by going behind prison walls. Create a literary journal from workshops, to be accessed by inmates in Minnesota prison libraries. Sixty inmates without access to Pell Grants or writing instruction will join workshops that help them generate at least 6 pieces of their own original work. Hundreds more inmates will hear and read work generated in the workshops. 2: Incarcerated Minnesotans will participate in workshops, and their peers will listen to a reading and have a Q and A session about the creative process. We'll offer evaluations at the end of class to gauge level of student engagement. We will distribute evaluations for the audience to fill out after the Q and A session. Previously, my students have loved and learned from audience feedback.
We offer fourteen creative writing workshops in three Minnesota correctional facilities: Stillwater, Oak Park Heights, and Lino Lakes. 140 men took our classes getting introductions to poetry, fiction writing, and essay writing. Prior to this, there was not one ongoing, consistent creative writing workshop offered in any facility. In addition to offering courses, some facilities allowed non-student inmates to attend internal end-course readings so additional incarcerated men were exposed to opportunities. Many of our students reported, anecdotally, that they found reading partners in the prison at large. These men became trusted readers, offering informal feedback and following their friends' work and progress. In addition, our students often wrote about men they were incarcerated with. Those men happily became literary subjects themselves. We were thrilled at the ripple effects, which we never anticipated. 2: Incarcerated writers have the literal barrier of a razor wire fence. We essentially brought literary community into the prison for long-term classes, readings, and discussion. By bringing writing instruction into prison facilities while honoring necessary security restrictions, we effectively eliminated a mostly-untrespassed barrier to exposure. We were elated at the reach we had with kindly cooperation from the Minnesota Department of Corrections.
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