Meet the Team: James Davis III, Communications Associate
James is a storyteller and a bridge between worlds — and as Freedom Reads' Communications Associate, he brings that gift to life every day through content, storytelling, and connection. From reading and responding to letters from our library patrons to writing essays and capturing photos and video on the road, his days are full and rarely go as planned. Whatever the task, James keeps the people Inside at the center of it all.
Continue ReadingResisting the Lines: Carrying Prison Wherever You Go
Taking the train from New Haven to Grand Central Station for the first time was the first step of my journey to Tribeca. Then again, maybe my first step was getting out of prison last July. Or maybe it was two years earlier, when I was granted a commutation and my 48-year sentence became 30. Being outside gave me access to a kind of freedom that Dwayne talks about throughout March Forth, a documentary about his incarceration as a juvenile. The film also raised questions that I still cannot answer: When does freedom truly begin for those of us released from prison? And what does it mean to be free when you carry prison with you wherever you go?
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IDOC hosts Freedom Reads for Inside Literary Prize event at Logan and Shawnee Correctional Center
Last week the Illinois Department of Corrections welcomed the national non-profit Freedom Reads to Logan and Shawnee Correctional Centers to facilitate book discussions, voting and author events for the third annual Inside Literary Prize.
Illinois Department of Corrections Hosts Freedom Reads for Inside Literary Prize Events at Logan and Shawnee Correctional Centers
Launched in 2023 by Freedom Reads, the National Book Foundation, and the Center for Justice Innovation with support from Lori Feathers, the Inside Literary Prize is the first-ever US-based literary prize awarded exclusively by currently incarcerated people. This week, incarcerated readers at both Logan and Shawnee Correctional Centers are serving as judges for the 2026 Prize.
Why a Cellmate is Not like a Roommate
“The prison is like an isolated town with nowhere to go. And the cell is our whole house,” Biktor B. writes, adding that this “house” is shared by complete and often incompatible strangers, who have next to nothing in common.
What Is it Like to Live in a Halfway House?
Kashawn Taylor writes about the expectations and realities of living in a halfway house after leaving prison, noting “it feels like freedom, with an asterisk.”
Latest Episode
The Past's Presence: Jesmyn Ward
In today’s episode, Jesmyn Ward reads from her third novel, Sing, Unburied, Sing, which is at once a bildungsroman, a ghost story, an epic, and a road novel. In portraying the suck of Parchman Prison on the generations of one Mississippi family, Ward deftly explores how the real threat of incarceration haunts these psyches and, in turn, these familial relationships. In this moving conversation, Ward reflects on living with grief, on listening for communications from beyond our immediate reality, and on the central commitments of her work: to restore agency to the kinds of characters too often denied a voice—and to grant acceptance to the ones harder to forgive. (July 26, 2021)