Sentences That Create Us

Description: The Sentences That Create Us provides a roadmap for incarcerated people and their allies to have a thriving writing life behind bars--and through walls--drawing on the unique insights of over 50 justice-involved contributors and their allies to offer advice, inspiration and resources.

Review Quotes: "This is one of the best books on writing that I've ever read. I couldn't put it down. There are millions of stories locked behind bars, along with the millions of people our nation has caged. This astonishing book has the power to set those stories free. And I believe the truths contained in those stories just might free us all."
-Michelle Alexander, author, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness

"When I was inside, I had no access to this manual. It didn't exist. And so, I scraped along the best way I could. I talked to friends who plotted out novels by riffing on rap albums. I talked to friends who'd written hundreds of pages, by hand, fantasy novels that only they and I and those walking the yard would read. And we were all writers. But had we had this book--we would have been better writers."
--Reginald Dwayne Betts, from the foreword

"Having taught college-level English courses in prison for more than a decade, I am thrilled for a volume like this one: chock full of prose that is not only beautiful, inspirational and wise, but hugely helpful in a pedagogical sense--a perfect addition to all syllabi that involve writing in the carceral space."
--Baz Dreisinger, Executive Director, Incarceration Nations Network