Tony has served almost three decades of a life with parole sentence in Tennessee. Before prison he lived as a closeted gay man; his Southern Baptist parents and an older brother have since died. While incarcerated he has worked as a tutor, clerk and newspaper editor. He’s also begun book clubs and writing workshops, and prisoner-led elder care programs. He writes about captivity in the hope of contributing to the prison reform movement.
In 2016, the Tennessee Department of Corrections (TDOC) opened Trousdale Turner Correctional Center—the largest of the state's 14 prisons, and…
Prisoners in solitary confinement are often served something called Nutraloaf. Imagine taking all the old crap from the back of…
In 2015 I was transferred to West Tennessee State Penitentiary, a prison with a reputation for violence. My new cellie…
From our table in the prison day room at South Central Correctional Facility in Tennessee, my friends and I can…
At South Central Correctional Facility (SCCF), a Tennessee prison privately operated by CoreCivic, those of us in general population are…
I first met David "Lucky" Kestner about 15 years ago, when we were both incarcerated at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution…
Dan*, a 40-something prisoner in Tennessee’s South Central Correctional Facility (SCCF), wants to make it clear that he doesn't intend…
Greg* has been incarcerated in Tennessee for about 18 months. He’s been on a waiting list for job placement for…
Louis Bell was a type of person we typically didn’t encounter in our Tennessee prison. A middle-aged white man with…
Travis learned to crochet from his grandmother. He was 10 when she showed him his first stitch, in 1986, and…