Category: Community Workshops

by Michael Mackey, San Quentin, CA Yes I’ve fallen in love, many different times, and there’s many different kinds of love and different levels of love. In a relationship love does inspire a person to do great things and even bad things as well. Love does take daily work in order for it to stay mostly good. On another note, my birthday is on Valentine’s Day, which in the past was enjoyable. I’ve had a few upsetting birthdays, a few. To me that four letter word love is something that I truthfully am towards others. I was the kid in

by Mackey Vesuvius, San Quentin State Prison, CA Year 2021 went by slow at first, but after the sixth month passed by it started to go by fast. 2021 was a year that I want to forget so easily for many reasons. So let me share a few of those reasons with you all!  Number one is the disastrous multiple staged always changing Coronavirus, COVID-19. Delta, Omicron, and whatever else to come with this virus has intimidated the whole world. It change the whole world. I’m in San Quentin State prison environment inherently unhealthiness and how much they don’t care

by Michael Mackey, San Quentin State Prison, CA Well, all right all right, how’s everyone doing on what was a fine day. My name is Michael Mackey and I’m here today to be an advocate for the incarcerated mentally ill.  Question, by a show of hands, how many of you in the audience right now, have been incarcerated for over five years? (Interesting). The ones that have been locked up for that long are the ones most affected by this problem and we should be able to fix this problem.  See there’s around 200,00 incarcerated men and women dealing with

by Mr. Lee, El Paso, Texas There’s a book I own about Tupac Shakur that I ordered back in 2007. It was the first of its kind I’d ever seen. I first noticed the book at a Hastings Books Music & Video retail store that has since been closed for many years. The book was about ten inches in length and 11 inches wide. It’s a solid block of a book, about two inches thick and is a lot heavier than most books. Along the spine of the book is the title in bold print with each letter capitalized like

by SADGIRLpapi cuentame otro cuento (daddy, tell me another story)i would askthrough the absence of his presencehe’d tell me of his journey back homeback to my mom and mei remember looking at his picturesand longing for the tickling stubs of his growing beardfor his piggy back rides or how he’d carry me on his shouldersand the way his hands cupped my cheeks with adoration  papi cuentame otro cuentoi would ask when he’d come back from his weeks away workinghe’d tell me of the melting snowthe cold creeks and growing rivershe’d tell me the stories of the land and agriculture how he farmed

by Z One morning in the 2nd grade, instead of walking into school how I usually did, I convinced my friend to ditch school with me and go to the arcades. But we had no money. My solution: Knock door to door, telling people we were hungry and homeless, asking specifically for quarters please. And some people actually gave us money. But one lady and her daughter, they grabbed my friend. They called the cops. The cops thought it was funny when they came and took us away. We were scared. Me more so of losing the pocketful of change