IMAGINE: writing communities
IN OREGON PRISONS ACROSS THE STATE
The conditions for creating a trusting and supportive work environment may seem impossible from prison. The experiment of creating a series of remote writing pods in prisons across Oregon is riddled with inevitability of errors misstep, mistakes, typos!! And yet, every time I have a ridiculous, this-won’t-work idea, I hear the small voice of my daughter at eight-years-old: “Mama, if things were perfect, there would be no story.” So, let’s trust this attempt to produce a writing community in prisons.
While Covid closed Oregon State Penitentiary, we managed to keep the writers in our workshop activated. By the time we were let inside, we had a manuscript of the 160-page anthology, Prisons Have A Long Memory. The core group of writers (our editorial board) managed to recruit and encourage submissions and send them to us. We drove down to Salem (pony express-style) to pick up piles of handwritten manuscripts. We worked on editorial notes and revisions and sent those back to the writers. Once we agreed a piece was finished we moved to the next. Eventually submissions were scanned which made the process easier.
The OSP editorial board has written a mission statement for the project that specifies the tone and submission criteria for Issue No. 1, The Ancestors. As the writing arrived, they read the pieces and worked with the Bridgeworks mentors to provide constructive feedback for revisions, or editing support. The editorial board has selected the work to be released each week. Some of the pieces may be further developed into longer work or compiled into an annual publication. The project is unfolding, join us to lend your support to this growing community of writers who are incarcerated.
July 1 THE ANCESTORS: INCANTATIONS
July 7 INTERCONNECTED ANCESTRY
