Jayne Thompson’s “Letters to My Younger Self: An Anthology of Writings by Incarcerated Men at S.C.I. Graterford”

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Guest: Jayne Thompson

In February of 2011, JAYNE THOMPSON, a creative writing and English instructor at Widener University, began running a workshop for the Prison Literacy Project at S.C.I. Graterford. The workshop, inspired in part by her experiences teaching at Chester High School, is comprised of twenty men who are inmates. In one exercise, she had the men write to and about their younger selves. What followed were pieces of deep introspection, revealing past regrets, fears, and many painful experiences. In this hour of Radio Times, Thompson discusses Letters to My Younger Self: An Anthology of Writings by Incarcerated Men at S.C.I. Graterford and a Writing Workbook, the result of the men’s creative writing projects. We’ll play a selection of recordings that the inmates made of their poems and essays.

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