Memoir as a Tool for New Futures, Behind and Beyond Bars

Building Writing Communities in a Story Based Strategy for Redemption and Healing and Growth

By Erika Duncan, Founder and Director of Herstory Writers Network

What might happen if people who were incarcerated without any hope of parole came together to recreate the turning points of their lives in slow motion, with the collective goal of shaping their stories to allow a reader or listener to find empathy for the hidden past selves that once caused serious (often unthinkable) harm? Might this be a game changer in which they might have something very important to give back to society, while finding a sense of purpose and meaning, even in captivity? Might this inform the larger way that people look at good and evil, so that all human beings could find both elements within themselves, and together fight for rehabilitation rather than punishment, for responsibility, reflection and remorse that would drive a collective effort to break the cycles of violence, retribution and revenge?

These were the questions that Ivan Kilgore and I asked each other as we spoke over the Global Tel Link rattly and raspy connection that was to become our vehicle for working together to refine Herstory Writers Network’s online curriculum for memoir writing groups meeting behind and beyond bars. These weekly conversations, with their multiple interruptions and loud crackling background noise were to lead to one of the most profound partnerships of my 78 years, in daring one another to articulate more deeply the ways in which an empathy-based approach to memoir writing, intended for people at all levels of education, could help people who had committed unthinkable crimes become leaders and teachers, as they revisited their pasts on the page.

Memoir is about the past, and nowhere is the shadow of the past more present than in prisons, where one pays for what cannot be rewritten. By using memoir to revisit moments of their journeys with new eyes, those who have been caught in a system that too often results in a downward spiral find hope, creative freedom, and the opportunity to build on their spirit and strength. But more important, as each new writer learns a way of being so present on the page that even a hard-hearted reader will be able to walk in their shoes, a new light is shed on how acts of cruelty and violence happen, allowing us to work toward new solutions in the interest of rekindling our goodness and light.

I entered the Herstory journey quite by accident 29 years ago, when I offered a week of free workshops to any woman in the community who wished to write her story, and then, once people had registered, decided it was a terrible violation to have people shaping intimate and vulnerable stories in a public space where a stranger could walk in at any minute. To remedy that situation, I invented the idea of engaging whatever participants appeared in trying on different “Page One Moments” for size to see which one would fast-forward the writing circle into caring, before actually writing them down.
That way people could practice with what they wanted to reveal and what they wanted to keep silent, as the writing was intended to be public and shared from the start. Never did I dream that the mission of writing to dare a reading stranger to care would lead meinto a new way of life that would touch thousands over the course of three decades, nor that the words “Stranger/Reader” and “Page One Moment” would be echoing in Spanish and Creole, and behind prison walls.

Nor could I have dreamed, when I first began to work with Ivan, that the curriculum we were designing more specifically for work with incarcerated people, court-involved youth, prison families, and people in re-entry would strike such a chord, not only around writing to stir empathy and responsibility, but around the four books of stories by the women in Long Island’s jails that we had published more that a decade ago.

“I’ve learned that building community isn’t about waiting for the perfect time, place, or version of yourself. It’s about seeing people — truly seeing them. It’s about making room for connection, even in the darkest, most unlikely places. It’s about letting people know you care…”

I am rereading Ivan’s message from last month’s newsletter as I write this, thinking about how that shared wish not only to see people but to be seen is what is so critical to our basic humanity, how it is perhaps the only thing that will save our poor world, if only we can all work together, inside and out, to hear and be heard.

“I wanted to create something that reached beyond those concrete walls. And to do that, I had to learn how to engage with communities on both sides of the system — inside and out. Because if we’re serious about building community, we can’t pick and choose who we include. We have to recognize that we’re all connected, whether we’re on the inside of a cell or walking free on the outside.”

Our work with the United Black Scholarship Family Foundation is just beginning in this tragic and dark time for our nation and world. But already we have so many visions and dreams around building community, one new writing circle, at a time. We are excited that the lifers in Ivan’s yard are beginning to talk informally among themselves about their Page One Moments, as they come to know the women’s stories, that they are interested in connecting with women lifers in another interconnected network, to use memoir writing to come to moments of reckoning of the harm they have caused, even as they weave in the larger picture of harm that was done to them, healing, giving and growing all at once.

If you are interested in learning more about the Herstory project, or in piloting our online curriculum with our support, or in becoming part of our National Beyond Bars Fellowship Program, please email Erika Duncan at eduncan@herstorywriters.org copied to Janelle Gagnon, our assistant creative director at jgagnon@herstorywriters.org