Our friends at PEN America are hosting a big event next Monday, November 9, at WNYC’s Green Space to benefit PEN’s Prison Writing Program. Breakout: Voices from Inside, their second annual benefit reading and reception, featuring readings by Mary Gaitskill, Eric Bogosian, John Turturro, Patricia Smith, Jamal Joseph, Lemon Andersen, and others. As an installment of WNYC’s signature series “The NEXT New York Conversation,” this event will be broadcast and live-streamed, allowing incarcerated men and women with radio and/or internet access to listen to the event and join our audience.
Please visit www.pen.org for more details and to purchase a ticket!
Proceeds from the evening will benefit PEN’s Prison Writing Program. The event will be streamed live on the web at www.wnyc.org/thegreenespace
The United States has the highest documented incarceration rate in the world; there are hundreds and hundreds of prisons across the country and, as of 2007, these institutions housed more than 2,300,000 inmates-70% of whom are non-white. Nearly 1 million of those in prison are serving time for committing non-violent crimes. Sadly, the situation is not improving.
The second-annual Prison Writing Benefit Reading will help to raise much-needed funds to enable this important program to continue into the future, but also to help the prisoners see themselves in a new way: as writers.
The NEXT New York Conversation, sponsored by HSBC, “The World’s Local Bank,” is WNYC’s The Greene Space’s multiplatform dialogue series featuring a collective of changemakers, newsmakers, tastemakers and New Yorkers, sharing their values about interesting topics that are reshaping, redefining, and re-imagining our world in the 21st century.
COLLABORATOR TICKET covers the expenses of one-on-one mentoring services between a PEN member and an incarcerated man or woman for one year. This premier ticket includes the best views and a reception following the program.
FRIEND TICKET covers the postage and printing costs to provide eight incarcerated men and women with a free copy of PEN’s Handbook for Writers in Prison. This ticket includes a reception following the program.
