Student Testimonials

“This program has changed my life.”

“While incarceration is often voiceless, MPWW gives us the opportunity to have a voice. Writing gives value to our lives and allows us to see we are bigger and brighter than one felony.”

“I believe healing begins when a person can express their stories. Writing is like a laundromat for my soul.”

“The thought that something I write could have a positive impact on other people gives me a sense of a life purpose, a reason to get out of bed and get moving for another day.”

“An MPWW class can give you an outlet. It can give you a break from the super special stupid of the daily madness. It can give you the agency of art. It can help you discover your voice, maybe for the first time.”

“Writing is the only time I can acknowledge my own mishaps. I write not to correct my wrongs, not to pretty my past, not to be famous, but to reflect and let it serve as a reminder to do the right thing and to live differently.”

"We prisoners are often remembered for the negative things we have done, but who we were before that fatal moment - that 17-year-old boy, the caring son or loving husband and father - is always forgotten. You have helped me remove a fear of being forgotten."

"That one or two kids I reach with my story may have the chance to live the dream I, so unfortunately, shattered."

"I spent many years of my life with no voice. No way of saying what I needed to say or think that what I had to say had any merit. Through writing I’ve found a way to give voice to my thoughts, ideas, and feelings. What comes out in my writing is what I struggle to say with my own mouth."

"I honestly believe that I have something to offer, something to contribute to the world; and that gift was given to me during your class the written word."

"If prison is a place where man loses himself, then writing is the means by which his reconnection is accomplished. Your class has been instrumental in that reconciliation."

"Writing has glued my shattered life back together into a functional piece again. It has imbued my new life with meaning and purpose. Miraculously, this is happening in prison."

"Thank you for helping me to remember I matter, if not to anyone else, to myself."

"No one ever told me books are where people hide all the answers."

"Writing and sharing my story has given me the opportunity to rediscover who I really am, who I was meant to be, and to finally begin realizing my potential."

"As a person who has spent the vast majority of his adult life caught up in a cycle of crime, drug addiction, and prison, writing has been the one thing that has allowed me to reconnect with a part of myself that I lost sight of a long, long time ago."

"This class has done more for me than I ever would have imagined, not just as a writer, but as a human being. It opened up my scope of empathy."