Banning Self-Empowerment: A Case Study on Distribution of a Creative Writing Guide to Incarcerated Persons in the US

Abstract

The Sentences that Create Us: Crafting a Writer’s Life in Prison is a creative writing published by Haymarket Books in early 2022 and through a grant from the Mellon Foundation, 75,000 free copies will be distributed to incarcerated people and prison-based writing programs. By mailing Sentences directly and without cost to incarcerated folx that request it, PEN America’s Prison and Justice Writing Program hoped to provide current information on publishing, best practices on developing a writing practice and support and encouragement to either initiate writing as a practice or to refine and try to publish writing. However, the distribution of the book has also highlighted the ways in which state Department of Corrections (DOC) or the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) actively seek to suppress the dissemination of self-empowering knowledge. Due to these myriad and diverse methods of censorship, delivery of The Sentences that Create Us has been hampered and many people who have requested the book have been denied the ability to read it and therefore cultivate a writer’s life inside. This article details the most major challenges to distribution of the book, which have been a statewide ban based on the book’s contents in Florida as well as a ban on distribution in Michigan because Haymarket Books was not included in the state Department of Correction’s approved list of vendors. These instances demonstrate the numerous ways carceral systems infringe on free expression, first amendment rights, and due process rights of incarcerated people. The article ends with suggestions for a multi-tiered strategy to combat the underlying logic that justifies these practices including empowering incarcerated people to challenge censorship, public awareness campaigns as well as litigation.