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The first time I went to Puerto Rico, my oldest son, Micah—who just turned eighteen this month—was still in grade school. His little brother Miles wasn’t yet a year old. It was 2012 and I would have never imagined Freedom Reads, an organization that believes literature is a conduit to the kind of joy I felt watching my oldest play with his little brother walking distance from one of the most beautiful beaches I’ve ever traversed. The clarity of the water, the way the waves half-washed all the years of prison I’d known. I was there for a conference, and prison was somehow both the furthest thing from my mind and the closest thing on it. Because that’s how it’s been since March 4th, 2005: no matter the city, no matter the coast, every place I’ve been has circled back to prison, or to the long shadow of my relationship with it.

This month the team opened Libraries in Missouri and I read from Doggerel in the women’s prison.  Our newest team member, James Davis III, took his first trip in 30 years, to return to a prison after being locked up in one for almost that long.  I left Missouri so early in the morning that even the earliest dragon birds  were still asleep. The night was still run by raccoons and opossums, the creatures that I've learned to love while riding on my 3am treks.  I was at the airport, and it felt like I had walked into a scene from Percy Jackson, because everything was open. Starbucks was open, another coffee shop was open, and a bar was open. That's where I had breakfast. I walked to the bar starving in a way that only a man who has just left a prison knows and I wanted potatoes. “These mornings are familiar,” I say to no one, thinking of all my recent mornings in airports. “I once had a rule, I only drink when I’m awake,” the person beside me said. When I mentioned my poem, Whiskey for Breakfast, the bartender, this dark-haired woman, who stared just about as far as my mom, said, “Now you must read for your breakfast.” She didn't expect me to, but I sang: my liver, awash in all but the dregs of a charred out cask…. 

Just 100 days since leaving prison after 25 years and 6 months, and I was going back Inside. Working for Freedom Reads means going back to prison. Freedom Reads went to Missouri to open 35 Freedom Libraries in two facilities and they would be the first two in the state to have the beautifully handcrafted wooden libraries. Women’s Eastern Reception, Diagnostic and Correctional Center (WERDCC) received 15 cherry wood libraries built in the New Orleans office; 20 libraries built in the home office in Connecticut went to FRDC (Fulton Reception and Diagnostic Center). It was my first trip to open Freedom Libraries with the team and it was intense.

I first encountered Albert Camus’ L’Étranger (The Stranger) in a college philosophy class. It was the first time I came across the concept of the Absurd. As a student navigating a country far removed from the one I had always known, the book gave me language to make sense of a world that felt unfamiliar and strange. I realized this new world could become a place where ambiguity was a refuge, where life’s contradictions could exist without neat explanations. This initial encounter left an impression I have carried with me ever since.

At Freedom Reads, every role is essential to bringing books and hope into prisons. Teryn Jasmin, our Assistant Controller, exemplifies the vital financial work that keeps our organization running smoothly and ensures that our mission can thrive.

Going into prison as a confused and ill-informed young boy and staying for three decades, afforded me many opportunities to think about freedom. At 19yrs young I was serving a 50 year sentence and freedom in my mind was abstract. It was a word that I’ve been hearing for as long as I can remember hearing words and making out how to use them. I could never conceptualize what freedom was. I had nothing I could point to and say, “Look, freedom!” Prior to going to prison the conception of freedom in my mind was imaginary, not realistic.

On October 20, 2025, I was at San Quentin Rehabilitation Center in California. Just outside the prison, you can look out and see one of the most beautiful views in the world. Staring out on the bay, near the horizon, the fog slowly lifts and you would be surprised that a prison is within walking distance. Dozens and dozens of us showed up to the second annual San Quentin Film Festival, brought to us by Rahsaan “New York” Thomas, who's spent more than two decades of his life at San Quentin, and his cousin Cori Thomas—who is not really his cousin but is his cousin in the way that prison teaches you the profound ways that we choose our families.

When Tim O'Brien came back from Vietnam, he was struck by how little his hometown understood about his time in war, how far their world was from the one he’d experienced in the army. Out of that silence, The Things They Carried was born. A book that gathered the stories of men he served with — Jimmy Cross, Kiowa, Norman Bowker — and held them close. Through their stories, O’Brien wrote of the weight each man carried: memory, fear, love, and the small, fragile things that made them human.

At Freedom Reads, stories are at the heart of everything we do. They build bridges, open doors, and remind us what transformation looks like in real time. Craig L. Gore is a natural story-teller who brings both craftsmanship and compassion to his dual role as a Communications Associate and a member of the Library Production team.

The who, behind those words is still a blur to me almost 40 yrs later. The impact of those words on my young mind proved strong during the many tumultuous moments of my life.  It is always something that I read, or remember reading, that helps me to overcome obstacles and survive the storms I encounter in life.

I attended a book reading and discussion hosted by Freedom Reads on October 10th with acclaimed poet and Freedom Reads founder and CEO, Dwayne Betts, and award-winning author and Harvard professor, Imani Perry, at MCI-Framingham. When I arrived at the women’s prison I learned that it is the oldest operating women's prison in the country, opening in 1877. 

Far too many stories I tell about someone else end up becoming stories I tell about someone allowing me to see myself truer. It’s the tragedy of going to prison as a sixteen-year-old, long before I’d had the experiences or sense of knowing who I was. And still, some of the stories become the best ways to remember the people. When I met Aggie Gund, I was running late. I’d been invited by Elizabeth Alexander to meet with Aggie and a group of others about the beginning of Art for Justice.