Letter writing is one of the main ways people in prison communicate with the outside world. Letters from Cooper Street features some of the letters written by the men who took part in a PCAP creative writing workshop in Cooper Street prison in Jackson, Michigan in 2019. In that class we wrote letters to real people – sisters and ex-girlfriends. We wrote letters to society and letters to our former selves. Some were prison related and some were about things like heartbreak and losing children that many people outside prison can also relate to. We wanted to share those letters with you. We were not allowed to take a recorder into the prison so the men mailed us their letters and we asked the Secret Society of Twisted Storytellers, a Detroit-based storytelling group, to read them for us. Each reader has their own connection to the criminal justice system.
Produced by: Maria Byrne, Zofia Ferki, Jenna Siteman
Art by: Kenneth Miller, a member of the Cooper Street workshop
In this follow up to Letters from Cooper Street, Zofia Ferki and Jenna Siteman talk about their experiences facilitating a creative writing workshop with the Prison Creative Arts Project at Cooper Street prison in Jackson, Michigan in 2019.
