Works of Justice: How to Write a Novel in a Month (While in Prison)

This year, we’re excited to partner with the PEN America Prison and Justice Writing Program to bring our creative writing resources to people who are incarcerated. Works of Justice—an online series that features content connected to the program—reflects on the relationship between writing and incarceration, and presents challenging conversations about criminal justice in the United States. We’ve shared this excerpt from PEN America to let you know how you can get involved! You can read their full blog post, follow the series, and participate here. 

This November, our Prison Writing Mentor Program is proud to partner with NaNoWriMo to pilot a new project that moves the act of mentorship out of its one-directional engagement (outside mentors, incarcerated mentees) to exist in multiple environments and forms.

Using the NaNoWriMo organization’s time-tested structure and thorough workbook materials, we have invited five of our most skillful PEN America Prison Writing Award-winning writers to mentor a small group of self-identified writers in the prison where they live.

As part of our efforts to connect the writing community through the walls, we’re inviting you to share support and feedback with our incarcerated NaNoWriMo writers. Even better if you’re also undertaking the challenge!

Here’s how you can engage:Meet our NaNoWriMo facilitators, and read about the projects they are taking up in November, here.

We have forthcoming pep talks from accomplished writers that are written expressly for our writers on the inside, but—as you’ll see—will likely speak to you, too. They underscore that writing behind the walls is not so different from writing in the outside world. Read the first pep talk in our series from fiction novelist Ryan Gattis!

We’ll be sharing excerpts of works in progress and status updates from our inside writing groups on this blog over the course of November. To be updated when a new blog is posted, please sign up here.

Many writers participating in the challenge in the free world talk and connect via social media. As there is no Internet in prison, we have to get a bit creative. We invite you, and all your writing friends, to share messages of encouragement, camaraderie, excerpts of works-in-progress, and other notes that help link the NaNoWriMo outside the walls to the NaNoWriMo on the inside. Please use the “Send a Note to NaNoWriMo Participants” form on the original post.