In the foreword to PEN America’s writing handbook The Sentences That Create Us: Crafting a Writer’s Life in Prison, poet Reginald Dwayne Betts emphasizes the unique accessibility of writing inside prison: “I knew the simplicity of an ink pen,” he writes, “would always be available.”

In my time working alongside our editorial team at Philips State Prison, I have seen this first-hand, how even when other resources are limited (including books – our editors can keep only eight in their bunks), the landscape of the mind and the paper and pen needed to translate it are usually available. Once ideas and stories have been shaped by that ubiquitous Bic pen, though, how easily can incarcerated folks find their way into the rest of the writing world; in other words, how do incarcerated writers enter the literary community, how do they find their readers?

How do incarcerated writers enter the literary community, how do they find their readers?

The goal of Beyond Bars is to create more opportunities for incarcerated writers to do just that, to give them a platform and an eager audience for their work. But although the act of writing itself is easier than other arts to produce inside prison, the logistical hurdles of incarceration resurface almost immediately when you consider publication: does the writer have access to a computer to submit their work electronically? do they have money for or access to stamps to send work through the mail? which journals and publishers still accept paper submissions? what happens if those paper submissions get lost or if the mail is interrupted or confiscated in the process? If the journal is online, will incarcerated writers even get to see their work when it’s published? Add to these difficulties the reality that according to the Prison Policy Institute, 40% of people in state prisons have disabilities, chief among them Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder and Autism Spectrum Disorders – developmental disabilities that make executive functioning tasks like mailing submissions and meeting journal deadlines significantly more difficult.

After decades of struggling with these kinds of tasks as a student, writer, and editor, I was diagnosed with ADHD and dyscalculia last February. It was life-changing to finally understand why I continue to struggle with basic editorial tasks despite my decade of work as an editor and writer: I wasn’t lazy or unmotivated when I couldn’t make myself submit for months; instead, my brain was overwhelmed by the sheer number of details and steps I needed to both remember and execute.

If the door to a building is locked, able-bodied folks may be able to climb through a window to get inside, but someone with limited mobility will still face an impossible barrier. For every person inside the carceral system, there are significant barriers to publication, but those barriers are multiplied tenfold for folks with disabilities, folks who are more likely to be incarcerated in the first place.

Though I wish I did, I don’t have a solution for removing those additional barriers. As I format and personalize decision letters, as I lose focus halfway through copying an address from one google doc to another, as I double check that I’ve saved the new letters in the right folder this time, as I struggle to send them (on time) to our managing editor, I think about the likelihood that 4 of the 10 submitters I’m responding to are writers like me, neurodiverse and disabled writers struggling to make it to the page some days let alone to the mail room. I think of how the barriers I face on the outside are multiplied inside a carceral system that works against the people it most directly affects. I think of the work of finding and licking a stamp, of addressing an envelope.

About The Author:

A fat, queer, and neurodivergent writer, Emily Lake Hansen (she/her) is a graduate student editor for Beyond Bars and a PhD candidate at Georgia State University where she also serves as the Nonfiction Editor for New South. Emily is the author of the poetry collection Home and Other Duty Stations (Kelsay Books) as well as two chapbooks: The Way the Body Had to Travel (dancing girl press) and Pharaoh’s Daughter Keeps a Diary (forthcoming form Kissing Dynamite Press).