Ink from Within began with a man in prison who wanted a certification from a public speaking group. We’ll call this guy ‘Shawn.’ We won’t name the national organization, because our project is too small to ask a national group for affiliation. Shawn was progressing through their public speaking awards, and came up against a certificate he wanted that required he start a small group of some kind.
Shawn had participated in a writing workshop at the prison, called Writers in the Community; this program was run by Eastern Washington University’s Masters in Fine Arts, Writing, candidates. These MFA students came in once a week, for around twelve weeks at a time, holding in-person workshops for inmate-writers. Writers in the Community also works with hospitals and shelters, teaching people from all walks of life the importance of the written word and personal expression. The amazing people at EWU took the time to show Shawn, and the rest of the people at that prison, how to work in a writing group: how to take criticism; how to rewrite a piece; how to read literature critically; how to take lessons from the greats, and incorporate elements of literature into their everyday writing.
From Writers in the Community, Shawn developed his idea for founding a small group—again, with he sole purpose of getting a certification from his public speaking group. For a few months, Shawn worked on the guidelines for his group, and had conversations with other people in his living-unit he thought might be interested. When he had a full table of guys, he launched the group—and called it ‘Ink from Within.’
For over a year, the group met once a week and workshopped their writing. They took turns bringing their pieces to be criticized. Poetry, creative non-fiction, chapter excerpts from novels-in-progress—these guys brought personal and often incredible writing to the table. Every other week, to give everyone a chance to catch up on the reading and to get their own pieces ready, the group held classroom sessions. They took turns bringing a writing guide, or especially well-written, published work to the table, and they would teach the other men at the table. This teaching helped each person understand the writing material better, and helped give them confidence to have an opinion about writing—their own, and other peoples’.
Shawn’s idea for putting together a group for an assignment had turned into something far greater. The people who consistently showed up for the writing sessions learned and grew, as writers and as people. They began to change. Writing and reading the writing of other people, was changing these incarcerated men in ways they wouldn’t have been able to guess at.
The people in the writing group started scheduling time to write; to read; began changing daily habits to be better writers. Choosing to look at people from different backgrounds through the lens of their work, rather than preconceived notions. It made each person spend quality time with people they otherwise wouldn’t have, in the pursuit of a higher goal.
These opportunities, to lean these types of lessons, are preciously rare in prions. If you are reading this from inside, you know that. If you’re reading it from outside, just imagine: every person you know is defined by their crime; their prison resume of where they’ve done time, who they did time with; people are defined by their tattoos; by who they work out with; by who they sit in the dayroom with, how often they get visits, and what kind of books people see them checking out in the library.
And here, five men had chosen, for over fifty weeks in a row, to sit with people regardless of any jacket or reputation the other men had—to talk about writing. To talk about poetry; to talk about writing out a memory from childhood that maybe could be a short story, that maybe could be a novel.
Shawn’s group had changed a few lives. And the people around these men noticed. Other people in the dayroom started walking by and asking questions. Correctional officers stopped by to listen during classroom days. Family members started sending in books and articles for the men to read and share.
Ink from Within had been born, grew legs, and was walking.
At some time during this process, one of the group members—we’ll call him ‘Matt’—had been struggling with what he wanted to do after his imminent release. He had been a TA at the prison, in their GED program, and he knew that after prison he wanted to help incarcerated people with their education and literacy.
Alongside Ink from Within, Matt had also gone through two cycles of Writers in the Community. And he’d also participated in PEN America’s Prison Writing Program’s Mentorship Program. Both of these programs planted in Matt the idea of working directly with inmates on expressing themselves through writing. Then, within a matter of weeks, Matt saw a documentary on TV about a basketball program the Golden State Warriors put on with San Quinten State Prison, and he also heard a man who’d been incarcerated, named Omari Amili speak at his prison, about reaching back inside to help inmates.
Between Writers in the Community, PEN America, being a TA, the Golden State Warriors, Omari Amili, Matt became convinced he had to bring Ink from Within with him when he left prison—and once he’d taken it outside the walls, he knew he had to reach back in, and bring even more of it out.
After a series of conversations with Shawn, Matt developed a rough blueprint for Ink from Within. At the center would be a yearly anthology of justice-impacted individuals who showed the best of prison writing could be. Poetry, essay, plays, fiction—whatever was submitted to Ink would be read, and the best of every category would be published. The proceeds of each edition would be split between the contributors and a rotating list of victim’s compensation funds.
Ink from Within has a simple mission statement—to improve the lives of the justice-impacted by helping them with the written word.. It seems at times that the justice system in our country is only concerned with stopping the crime—addressing the symptoms of injustice in America, without addressing the diseases. People commit their first crime for a myriad of reasons, but most commit their next crimes for the same reason—it is the only way they know for coping with their lives. At Ink, we believe that through writing, the justice-impacted can learn to do good through their writing. And once people see they can do good with their voice, they can make different decisions. Just like the men in the original Ink from Within.
It may seem far-fetched that better literacy can help keep women and men out of prison. But literacy means a lot of different things, in our present day. Many women and men releasing from incarceration have never read a lease agreement; never read through health insurance coverage; never encountered a printed pay-stub. Even men and women who can read and write by the standards of their institution may not know what their rights are as a tenant, might not know what health care they’re entitled to, may not know where their money is going, and why. Struggling with these day-to-day challenges, many men and women fall back on the behaviors and attitudes that got them into prison in the first place. When they cannot cope with life on life’s terms, a lot of the justice-impacted go back to their old lifestyle.
At Ink from Within, we believe that when the justice-impacted find their voice—writing poetry, a journal entry, or even just expressing their reaction to a book—they find a way to tell their story. This empowering process of finding their voice and telling their story gives them the confidence to apply for a job, seek higher education, look for a better apartment, or speak honestly to a doctor. Anyone who’s every helped an incarcerated person write a letter to a loved one, or helped them work through a line of poetry knows that it can be a gateway to that person thinking better, acting better. It can help that person replace bad habits with good ones.
Some people take it for granted that they have a voice. On the other hand, many people who have been inside have had their voices taken. Ink from Within tries to help those women and men get their voices back. And not simply so that these justice-impacted people can stop making mistakes. At Ink we say, “it’s not enough to stop doing bad—we must start doing good.” We hope by reading this anthology you see that the contributors are changing—they are changing themselves, they are changing the people near to them, and they are even changing you who read them. And we hope that you help us make sure that the changing doesn’t stop here.
Ink From Within 