Happy New Year friends and lovers of The Beat Within! What an honor to have this publication in your hands to read and absorb, with the hope that the following words give you that shot in the arm of inspiration and support. Publishing a print magazine in this day and time – a website, emails blasts/newsletter, social media, and let us not forget the many writing and conversation workshops we lead each week inside various juvenile halls, schools, community based organizations, the San Francisco County Jail and inside San Quentin State Prison… well, it’s a lot of work, but truly a labor of love, for this tiny non-profit based in San Francisco, CA.
As we enter our 24th year as print magazine and 23rd year as a non-profit, we want to take this time to thank The Beat Within team: Lisa Lavaysse, Omar “OT†Turcios, Simone Larson, David Inocencio, Brittany Jarabek, Manen Pau, to our unparalleled crew of team leaders, lead facilitators: Michael Kroll, Zach Wyner, Alison Nugent, Jill Wolfson, Kathy Ellison, Zoe Mosko, Alyssa Maano, Mike Mosko, Linda Gonzalez, Andrea Flores, Jen Tilton, Daniel Mendoza and co-facilitators, remote editors/typists, for the many hours they put into making The Beat Within possible, with all its beauty and truths. And of course, there are our many-many participants and the various sites we partner with, visit each week, to make this all possible and last but certainly not least, our many partners – individual donors, funders and various counties, who are the people, institutions and organizations who support our mission from leading the workshops and giving voice to our participants, to embracing our one of a kind publication, The Beat Within.
One can read The Beat Within in various ways – through our website, on social media, or embrace the physical product, our magazine, The Beat Within, which is given to all our contributors and our many subscribers twice a month.
What a journey we find ourselves on. It is truly an act of love to be able to do what we do. There is nothing like a writing workshop and being able to sit down with a writer, young or old, and to listen to their story, their ideas and help them brainstorm on how best to create their written work. There is nothing like handing out the latest issue of The Beat Within and seeing the look on the faces of our “new†workshop participants who for the first time see their work in print. There is nothing like hearing one of our contributors step up at the end of our writing session to read aloud their essay to us and their peers. There is nothing like building and sustaining a trusting relationship with you thoughtful writers. There is nothing like witnessing a participant find his/her voice after months of resistance and overcoming one’s insecurities. There is nothing like having the staff (counselors and/or deputies) support our work and make our workshops truly a pleasurable success. There is nothing like having the access to enter inside the criminal justice system to embrace our participants, as well as to give our amazing facilitators the chance to also go inside the youth or adult facilities to support, mentor, teach, lead our one of a kind workshops.
Well, here we are in the very early days of January, 2019. Another year is upon us. What will this New Year bring us? We are super excited to find out! If you are a Beat writer, we can’t wait to read your insights and revelations in these upcoming issues. We can’t wait to be inspired, challenged, encouraged and moved, as so many of you have very eloquently done in past issues. We know the power of your words and that they are only words, but hey, it’s a start, yeah, action speaks loud and clear, but for many of us, we have to start with our thoughtful and truthful words.
If you have never written before, we hope you will start! We hope you will find the courage to write your story, your poem, your commentary, or short story for The Beat Within. We want to hear from you. We want to know what makes you tick! We want to learn about the good times and bad times and your goals for yourself. Your concerns and fears moving forward. Your dreams for a better you and a better tomorrow. We want to know about the lessons you have picked up from this journey you find yourself on. We want to know what you will do differently, or why you want to remain loyal to a lifestyle that possibly brings one pain and loss of freedom. Your words truly matter and like it or not, we want to celebrate you and what you have to say, so we suggest you make every word count!
Since 1996, The Beat Within has embraced the words of our youth and adults from all over the USA. We have organically grown from a few workshops inside the San Francisco Juvenile Justice Center, to workshops in many juvenile institutions from all over California and the nation. We do our best to be a consistent and reliable program and friend that makes a small difference in those who embrace the opportunity to share a part of themselves with our many readers.
We understand in 2018, we worked directly with over 7000 participants! We put out 51 issues of The Beat Within! We lead over 100 writing workshops a week! We go into over 30 institutions each week! We have over 100 volunteers! We receive 400-500 unsolicited letters a month from those interested in submitting their work to The Beat Within. We have close to 5000 page likes on Facebook! These numbers are not too shabby!!! It’s been a goal of ours for a couple years to build bridges from the correctional facilities we visit to the community based organizations and schools we partner with. It has always been our goal to give one a voice regardless of where one finds themselves – incarcerated, on the streets, or home. We are certainly grateful for all of you who embrace the opportunity, thank you!
As we close this latest editorial note, it is our desire upon you reading and flipping through the pages of this one of a kind publication, that you truly get a real glimpse of The Beat Within in all our forms, working in corrections with juveniles and adults, as well as working in the community inside various community based organizations and schools. In the end we hope you recognize that everyone’s story matters, as does yours! Don’t dismiss the opportunity, embrace it and use The Beat Within to your advantage. Recognize the power of storytelling! From these poems, thoughts on our topics, to the various commentaries and stories, you, the reader, will learn plenty, one thing for sure you will see is that you are not alone in this fight for a better world and/or improving oneself. It is not easy. It’s a lifetime of work, that regardless if you are free or not, we the people will always be a work in progress! Happy New Year friends! Reach out to us anytime. We are here to listen and to embrace your contributions and words. They have mattered to us since our inception in 1996 and here we are today in 2019, still pushing forward, onward and upward! Write on!