prison
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The Rumpus Interview with Daniel Alarcón
Daniel Alarcón talks about his latest novel, At Night We Walk in Circles, drawing inspiration from Bolaño and Chekhov, the writer’s place of privilege, and the questions that arise from an imagined life that easily could have been.
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Standard of Care
He has no short-term memory and will probably never walk again on his own. He was twenty-five when he was incarcerated for larceny over $250 in 2005. His name is Paul.
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Conversations with Literary Ex-Cons: Billy Hayes
Billy Hayes, the writer of Midnight Express, candidly discusses his memoir about escaping from a Turkish prison in the 1970s, the pros and cons of having your story adapted by Hollywood, and what the War on Drugs has meant for…
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Conversations with Literary Ex-Cons: Patricia McConnel
Patricia McConnel, who served time in a federal prison in the 1950s, sits down to talk about her past, and about Sing Soft, Sing Loud
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The Only Woman in the Room
At the Tazewell County Justice Center, on a Monday night in May, five women gather for a creative-writing class. They microwave plastic cups of instant coffee, then drag chairs up to the conference table where we’ll write.
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How Accurate Is Orange Is the New Black?
We’ve blogged a bit about Orange is the New Black from storytelling and feminist angles, but what do real-life women who have been to prison think about the show? According to the women Kat Stoeffel talked to, it’s actually pretty accurate—especially the…
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Stories About Women in Prison
Orange Is the New Black, the new Netflix series based on the memoir of Rumpus interviewee Piper Kerman, has piqued viewers’ interest in the stories of women in prison. Whose stories get told, and how do we interpret them? A…
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When Schools Use the Police Station as a Principal’s Office
In Meridian, when schools want to discipline children, they do much more than just send them to the principal’s office. They call the police, who show up to arrest children who are as young as 10 years old. Arrests, the…
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Conversations With Literary Ex-Cons: Piper Kerman
Piper Kerman is the author of the memoir Orange is the New Black, a story of how, years after running money for an international heroin gang, she was indicted, convicted, and did time in a federal women’s prison.
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A Close Look at Solitary Confinement
Mother Jones features a gripping story by Shane Bauer, who in 2009 was apprehended on the Iraqi border and imprisoned in Tehran’s Evin Prison in Iran for 26 months, 4 of which were spent in solitary. Using his experience as reference,…
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Pussy Riot Jailhouse Interview
“We couldn’t even imagine that the authorities would be so dumb that they would actually legitimize our influence by arresting us. Sure, Tsentr E tried to intimidate us by tailing us constantly. But unlike Putin, we’re not chickenshit—so we didn’t…
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Conversations with Literary Ex-Cons: J.M. Benjamin
J.M. Benjamin spent more than twelve years in state and federal prisons in New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania. But he read and read in prison, and eventually wrote more than a dozen urban fiction novels.