VOLUNTEER!

Our hope is to continue uniting interested writers, performers, and scholars who wish to help create a space for self-expression and learning-in-community. Although many volunteers have some kind of teaching background, a specific kind of formal education or previous teaching experience is not necessary. What qualifies volunteers are the same attributes which bring the men to the class: passion for words and (more importantly) other people, and a dedication to showing up and sharing respectfully. If you are interested in joining our collective of teachers and sharing your expertise as a writer or reader on the outside with writers and readers on the inside, we are always taking applications and would love to hear from you. And if we don't have classes at the prison closest to you, we would like to change that, with your participation. Simply contact Laurel by hitting the "contact" button below.

DONATE!

All volunteers are unpaid, and funding we have received in the past has gone directly to class resources. We gratefully welcome monetary donations--with them, we would be able to furnish additional texts for classes, occasional mileage reimbursement for volunteers, and funding for other direct-service initiatives. While we have not yet obtained nonprofit status, we are looking for a fiscal receiver, so your donation will likely be tax deductible within the next several months. Please contact us for updated information.

BE A LIBRARY BUILDER!

Do you have extra books you're not getting good use out of? Some tomes collecting dust? Prison libraries receive very little to no funding for their collections, and your donations can make an enormous difference in the life of someone on the inside. Over the last several years, the Writers In Prisons Project has collected nearly 800 books for the Oakhill Correctional Facility and several hundred for Taycheedah; we are always happy to bring more in (you can mail them to us, drop them at a neighborhood location, or contact us for a pickup). Many other Wisconsin correctional facilities would also benefit from your books; you can call any correctional facility and ask about donation procedures for their library. Please consider giving your neglected new/gently-used books to the prison closest to you.

OTHER COLLABORATIONS

We appreciate those who work in Corrections and are open to the role of arts in correctional facilities. If you are with the Department of Corrections and have questions or ideas for how the arts might be incorporated into your institution, please contact us. And if you currently run arts projects within the DOC, we'd love to hear about your experiences.

Contact Us