Please assist us to publish 100 prisoner books in 100 days! There are many people in prison who truly want to give back to their communities. As part of our Writers’ Room Workshop we have created just such an opportunity for those who are incarcerated to be able to publish their books. Our objectives here are to provide our authors a standard royalty and the remaining of the proceeds will go to the United Black Family Scholarship fund and Community Grant fund .

In terms of writing and what it does for those of us who are incarcerated, we exerience feelings of being trapped and we feel voiceless, or misunderstood because we cannot speak the words we truly wish to say, and have to use poor substitutes. Writing therefore becomes a total release for someone in prison.

Now, I’d imagine many of my readers have never been in prison. Try an imagine what an unending time period in here must feel like. Especially if you’re innocent of what you were accused of. But even if guilty of something, writing and publishing a book can transform the person in so many ways. Just to experience the sense of release can transform a person’s life. The stories told from such lives are often thoroughly visceral and amazing for the layperson to read.

The best writers, of course, can take you to their inner places, to the place of a crime or a life changing experience that is positive, or the moment they knew they’d grown into a new person and why. In the Writers Room Workshop I teach, I explain quite often, “You have to be willing to go deeper than the person on the street. You have to take them for a ride of which they cannot take themselves.” So not unlike acting, you have to go into yourself to bring out the real you or other characters within you that feel real and also need to come out. It’s just an amazing process when done well. And perhaps first you learn to allow the page to take yourself out of your cell. But after many tales, you learn to take others on that same ride. On the backs of our words. Saddle up MF-er!

That said, one of the main reasons that were working to establish this program is we want to be able to provide a sense of accomplishment for these men, women and children.

UBF founder Ivan Kilgore tells of the first time he published from prison walls. “I remember like yesterday the first time I held my book. It was then that I realized that these walls are more mental than they are physical. And through my writings I could bring the world to me and make amends in my community.”

It can not be a surprise that there are many visceral voices in jail. So many of the people there are there simply via trying to survive and medicate their pain. Let’s show them how to fulfill that good with the power of words and publishing!

We definitely need donations as well as any volunteers that would be willing to assist with this endeavor. If you’re willing to volunteer please contact us at our contact us tab. THANK YOU!

Click on the Donate button and donate today!