Every writer I’m familiar with desires to improve their craft. In pursuit of that they search out classes, workshops, writer’s groups, associations and support organizations. It’s an essentially human desire to want to become better. I haven’t met a scribbler yet who isn’t keen on being more adept at turning out a phrase, more vivid in word-painting (i.e. painting scenes in words). The end goal is always the same: to be better.
My progression as a writer parallels my evolution as a person. I’ve been behind bars in Colorado since 2010 but a writer way before I can remember. As a prisoner, the first literary class I was able to partake in wasn’t until 2016. By then, I’d already spent two years in long, arduous, independent study after floundering for the first four years of my incarceration trying to become a professional writer. It wouldn’t be until 2021 that I’d take a literary course that compelled me to elevate in the craft.
Incidentally, I helped create the course that led to my greatest improvement as a writer. And there lies the problem. Every improvement I’ve achieved behind bars has been, at least initially, an independent, self-driven endeavor. People in society have this idea that prisons are overflowing with programs and rehabilitation opportunities. While I can assure you there are many programs rehabilitative and otherwise. Truth is the vast majority are only available to twenty-five percent or less of prisoners.
Arguably, it’s a whole lot easier to improve in the craft than as a human being. Outside of prison, people take for granted self-improvement. It’s only in prison’s punitive setting that self-improvement is considered a privilege subject to authority’s good graces. Most of what I’ve learned as a writer was autodidactic; self-improvement has been a much more fraught path. One thing I’ve learned during my incarceration is you will only go so far with people deliberately holding you back.
Prison Writers Support Organization 