When Rowan Thompson began working at PEN America in the Prison and Justice Writing program, they were eager to make a difference in the lives of incarcerated people. However, it wasn’t long before Thompson noticed serious signs of misalignment between staffers and management, leading quickly to frustration and disillusionment.
“The program that was … being publicly lauded and talked about on all these podcasts and getting written up … [It] was very different than the day-to-day reality of [it],” said Thompson, who is using a pseudonym for fear of retaliation. “I tried to have [this conversation] endless times while I worked there, which is: Are we actually accountable to the people who are incarcerated who we’re supposed to be serving—or are we accountable to PEN leadership and their priorities? Because the priorities [of incarcerated writers were] very different than how [we spent] our resources.”
The PEN Prison Writing Program—today known as the Prison and Justice Writing Program, or PJW, was established in 1971. Initially run by volunteers, it was later led by Jackson Taylor, the co-founder and associate director of the graduate writing program at The New School in New York City, where he also taught. As director of the Prison Writing Program, Taylor received a half salary from PEN America, and he recruited MFA students to work for him. The students were initially paid by The New School, but over time they became unpaid volunteers.
PEN America then established the Writing for Justice Fellowship in 2018 with support from the Agnes Gund Art for Justice Fund. The $100 million fund was created using money made from New York art collector and philanthropist Agnes Gund’s sale of Roy Lichtenstein’s “Masterpiece” (1962)—and $22 million was specifically earmarked for 30 criminal justice reform and arts organizations, including PEN’s Prison Writing Program. PEN hired a director and program manager that same year, the first two paid staff members dedicated specifically to the program.
PJW currently falls under the purview of PEN’s “literary programming.” However, until recently, the director of PJW reported directly to the chief operating officer of PEN America, who in turn reports to chief executive officer (CEO) Suzanne Nossel. This is the way much of the organization is set up, with many departments existing in silos. Former employees told Prism this lack of defined structure leads to reduced accountability across the organization.
Recent criticism of PEN America has been wide-ranging—including its refusal to cooperate with its parent organization PEN International and call for a ceasefire in Gaza, its failure to pay incarcerated writers, and claims of censorship from its union. Thompson is clear about who’s at fault for most of it.
“The CEO is the root of a lot of these things,” Thompson said. “The fish rots from the head down. And nothing moves in that organization without her say-so. [So much] can be linked back directly to her priorities, particularly when it comes to the prison and justice writing, media strategy, and the decision to focus on the shiny, newsworthy things versus investing in the infrastructure of the program and the relationship-building and connection that people were actually coming to us for.”
“It feels like I’m bothering them”
The Mellon Foundation gave PEN America a three-year grant of $1.5 million in September 2021 to “support expansion of the Prison and Justice Writing Program.”
Thompson said that when PJW received the grant, staff was excited by the “endless possibilities.” But ultimately, “it just flattened and fizzled out.” Staff members had no insight into how the money was used or whether a budget for programming ever existed.
Though plans never materialized, early discussions of how to spend the grant money focused on hosting a gala to fundraise for PJW, for example, or holding a conference.
Thompson noted that incarcerated writers cannot attend these kinds of events and that there was a significant disparity between the support incarcerated writers often requested and what the program actually focused on. When staff members brought up these issues with management, their concerns were minimized, dismissed, or outright ignored.
“It was so evident that was happening because of internal dysfunction at the leadership of the organization and a complete misalignment with the things that were actually being requested directly from the people we were supposed to be centering,” Thompson said.
According to an email to Prism from the former program director, Caits Meissner, who left PEN in 2023, the grant funds were used on “staff positions and development of the [Incarcerated Writers Bureau program] and The Freewrite Project, as well as distribution of 75,000 copies of the [“The Sentences That Create Us”] book free of charge to writers inside.”
This was echoed by a PEN spokesperson, who also told Prism that additional funding was used to bring on three new staff positions for the Prison and Justice Writing Program: one to manage the large volume of mail, one to manage editorial initiatives, and one to manage distribution and curriculum development for “Sentences.”
“Stipends were given to justice-impacted individuals and other justice-oriented organizations who helped develop curriculum for ‘Sentences.’ PEN America also contracted an anti-carceral organization to build the digital infrastructure for one of its upcoming online projects,” PEN Senior Communications and Media Adviser Suzanne Trimel said in an email.
Prism contacted Mellon for comment regarding PEN’s use of the funds, but the foundation declined to respond.
Thompson said the 2022 rollout of PEN America’s book, “The Sentences that Create Us: Crafting A Writer’s Life in Prison,” which aimed to serve as a guide for incarcerated writers, was “disastrous.” Some of the problems were related to the supply chain, they said, but a majority of the problems were because of staff turnover, issues with tracking books, and other internal problems that largely point to mismanagement of the program. Thompson also told Prism that, for at least a six-month period, the book became priority number one—and promoting and distributing it became more urgent than paying prizewinners, managing correspondence between mentors and incarcerated mentees, and responding to requests from people inside.
Writers on the inside—particularly those without friends or family to act as intermediaries and advocates—already struggled to reach PEN staffers and get the assistance they needed, so having fewer people in the office only exacerbated the situation.
One such writer, Torrey Lindqvist, who is using a pseudonym, said in a call from prison that all of their experiences working with PEN have been frustrating, requiring that they follow up on issues multiple times before a staffer returns their messages.
“The onus is on me to communicate with PEN,” they said, noting that PEN’s response tends to be patronizing. “When I deal with PEN, it feels like I’m bothering them.”
Still, “The Sentences That Create Us” appeared to resonate with many of the incarcerated writers who received it. Prison Writing Award winner Demetrius Buckley said in an email to Prism that the book was informative and “created a sense of solidarity with the struggles of other writers inside.” He also noted the encouraging role it could play for incarcerated writers looking to make a difference and find community.
However, former PEN staffers question whether it was the best use of the funds—especially because its release was accompanied by a media push, with Meissner’s public appearances and interviews taking her away from the day-to-day operations of PJW. It often seemed as though the book was purely a marketing strategy for PEN America, Thompson said.
“None of that money was seen directly by folks in prison,” Thompson said. “It was clear that the priority was on the public-facing attention that the program was getting, and not so much on the actual writers and what they needed and wanted.”
In an email to Prism, Trimel said the organization is “particularly alarmed” by “false accusation[s]” regarding “The Sentences That Create Us.”
“All marketing for ‘Sentences’ was developed with the goal of connecting readers and writers inside prisons with the resource, free of charge,” Trimel wrote. “Any success for ‘Sentences’—which features justice-impacted contributors who were paid for their work—is not for PEN America’s benefit, but for the thousands of people inside who have learned about writing and publishing from its pages.”
Trimel told Prism that “Sentences” was an “updated version” of PEN’s longstanding “Handbook for Writers in Prison” that “has circulated inside of prisons across the country for decades.” Prism could not independently verify Meissner’s claim that 75,000 copies of the book were distributed to people inside—largely because of the many logistical issues related to sending books into prisons.
Prison mailrooms across the country reject books on what often seems to be an arbitrary basis, such as the contents of the books or suspicion that “stains, packaging materials, or stickers on the pages could contain dangerous substances,” as The Marshall Project reported. A 1989 Supreme Court ruling made it possible for wardens to reject publications they unilaterally decide could be “detrimental to the security, good order, or discipline of the institution or if it might facilitate criminal activity.”
Each state has a list of approved vendors from whom books can be purchased. In a state like Idaho, there are 10 approved vendors, whereas in Iowa, there are only two. Meanwhile, in Missouri, incarcerated people can no longer receive books purchased by friends or family; they can only purchase books with their own money.
Aria Shah, who is also using a pseudonym, is an abolitionist with years of experience working with incarcerated writers. Shah told Prism that PEN appears to use writers inside to make their organization look good—“without investing in the bureaucratic resources necessary to support them.” Shah also said there’s a lot of money in the prison arts space, but from her perspective, “it has not made the material conditions of incarcerated people an iota better.”
Alex Tretbar, a formerly incarcerated poet from Kansas who won the Prison Writing Award in poetry in 2022 and placed second in fiction and poetry in 2021, was the first to publicly sound the alarm on PEN’s failure to pay writers inside. Tretbar said that, in theory, “Sentences” was important for people in prisons and jails and that more books like it should exist. However, he’s uncertain if it was the best way for PEN to allocate funds.
“One thing I have thought about is how many writers I knew in prison who were interested in a specific poet or novelist but had no one on the outside to purchase books for them,” Tretbar said in an email. “A more personal, tailored approach to sending books to incarcerated people would be a far more effective way to stimulate and encourage writers working in perilous conditions.”
“Shell of a program”
Another project for which major grant funds were earmarked was the Incarcerated Writers Bureau (IWB). The program, which began with a goal of pairing experienced coaches with established incarcerated writers, held an orientation in March 2023, and PJW staffers said the website would launch in September of that year. In a previous statement to Prism, a spokesperson for PEN said the website was delayed. It is now expected to launch in the fall of 2024, according to a current PEN staffer.
IWB mentee and incarcerated writer Craig Romero, who is also using a pseudonym, said in an email that his experience in the IWB has “thus far not been much of anything,” noting that the program “initially over promised” what it offered to participants.
Trimel told Prism in an email that the timeline for the IWB was adjusted due to staff transitions.
“We have included feedback from incarcerated writers involved in the project, and we incorporated this information into the development of the digital resource,” Trimel wrote.
According to Thompson, the IWB feels like it is “just paying lip service.” They said that instead of aiding the thousands of incarcerated writers who want mentors to connect with and read their work, PEN instead appears to focus on helping more well-known incarcerated writers get book deals or big bylines at prestigious publications—ostensibly work that PEN can take credit for.
Trimel told Prism that PJW “does not claim to officially represent any writer in the form of an agent, nor accept money from writers for their work” and that the “purpose of IWB is to connect writers to opportunities directly so that PEN America is removed from being a go-between for publishers interested in working with writers who are in prison.” However, volunteer coaches who were partnered with incarcerated writers for the first cohort of the IWB that never officially launched were recently asked by a PEN staffer to pass along any outstanding work materials to the organization. PEN did not elaborate on what it plans to do with these materials.
Chris Blackwell, a journalist incarcerated in Washington, said in a call that the way PEN has structured the IWB, and its reliance on more well-known writers, will make the program look successful—even if the organization did nothing to support the work getting published.
“With minimal work, it looked like it was set up to just be this shell of a program, and [PJW] would get a lot of credit for the labor of other folks,” Blackwell said. That labor includes both the hard work of the coaches working with writers on a volunteer basis and the established careers and extensive bylines that many IWB writers like Blackwell had before the program existed.
Mai Tran is a former PEN mentor who also volunteered as a coach in the IWB but ended participation in the program in October 2023 after a call to boycott PEN America for its stance on Palestine. In the two years spent working with the PJW program, Tran said that PEN appears to only work with the “best” writers, meaning those who already have established names and careers. The incarcerated writers chosen by PEN also tend to skew male and college educated, Tran said, noting that something should be done to address this disparity.
Tran told Prism that PEN’s choice of writers is also noticeable to those inside, leading some writers—including a friend of Tran’s—to avoid even attempting to work with the organization.
“He says that everyone knows about PEN, obviously, but a lot of people won’t submit to it because the contest seems out of reach statistically and where they’re at writing-wise,” Tran explained.
Thompson said that when they worked at PEN, they encouraged PJW to do outreach to women’s prisons and to queer and trans people inside to diversify the roster of writers. This was especially important to Thompson because it was clear that it was primarily white men who were given opportunities in the program, “and they are completely overrepresented in the writers [PJW works] with [when] compared to who’s actually in prison.” However, PEN leadership didn’t support the efforts, leading to “constant tension” between PJW staff and PEN leadership.
There are countless “amazing artists and writers” inside who are “chomping at the bit” to share their work, according to Thompson, but they are never given the opportunity. Under the right management, PEN could play an essential role in launching the careers of previously unpublished writers, but the organization appears unwilling to begin work from scratch with those who are more inexperienced.
“We had caused harm, and we had broken promises, and we had broken trust over and over and over again,” Thompson said. “And ultimately, that was a huge moral injury for all of the people working there; we felt that disconnect every day.”
Chasing checks
Not only has PEN lacked transparency regarding how it spends sizable grants intended to improve conditions for incarcerated writers, but PJW has also failed to pay incarcerated writers—including those who have already been released from prison.
In April, Prism published an op-ed that outlined the experiences of a handful of PJW award winners who spent months and sometimes even years tracking down their prize money. This includes two writers who were out of prison for years. Current PJW staffers insist that only six people were missing payments.
Trimel said in an email that each year, about 30 writers are awarded monetary prizes from the PEN Prison Writing Awards. The PJW team “reached out directly to six writers who came to our attention as not having received checks in the mail during the pandemic from 2020 to 2022,” and Trimel said the organization has “now rectified the situation.”
Prism was able to confirm that among these six writers, the last person owed funds received their payment on May 11 for awards dating back to 2020 and 2021. This May 11 payment came weeks after PEN claimed in a previous statement to Prism to have paid all of the writers.
Prism also identified additional writers who anonymously disclosed they, too, were missing awards money, some of which went back to 2019.
Blackwell told Prism that the first time he worked with PEN America was part of a project in which the organization put out a call for writing from authors inside.
“We finally ended up publishing [our pieces, and] they didn’t even pay us,” he said. “So another organization stepped in to pay the writers that they had connected to PEN because they felt so uncomfortable [about us not being paid for our work].”
In a statement to Prism, Trimel said the organization was “taken aback” by continued allegations regarding payment and mismanagement of PJW programs.
“Overall, our dedication to incarcerated writers remains steadfast; we are solely devoted to developing their talent and skills and making sure their promise comes first in our mentorship program,” Trimel wrote. “Where we have had difficulty (in reaching some writers to make sure they receive prize payments), we have been transparent, hold ourselves accountable, and have corrected the problem.”
Former PEN staffer Louis Greeson, who is using a pseudonym, said that paying incarcerated writers has always been difficult, explaining that it often comes down to logistical issues primarily on the part of prisons and their complex and varying regulations.
Thompson agreed.
“Moving money into prison is a difficult thing, but it is not an impossible thing,” Thompson said. “And it is definitely something that a program that is, every year, dispersing money should have figured out by now.”
According to former staffers who spoke to Prism, one of the main reasons making payments to writers inside has been an ongoing issue at PEN is because of the lack of systems in place between PJW staff and PEN’s larger finance department, where staffers are not as familiar with the various stipulations and requirements related to paying people in prison. Another problem is the high turnover rate at PEN America, which affects various facets of work, including the ability to promptly pay contractors and temporary workers.
When it came to the payment of awards and honorariums, PEN’s finance department had records of checks that were issued, but there was no feedback mechanism that informed PJW staffers that checks were sent, received, deposited, or cashed. This meant payments often slipped through the cracks. In PEN’s April 17 press release, the organization said, “PJW has already created an internal audit system.” However, when pressed for details on how this system works, the organization declined to elaborate.
Thompson recalled how an organizational partner once reached out to PJW staff with a list of writers who hadn’t been paid by PEN, and only then did PEN prioritize tracking down the writers for payment.
During the six-month period that followed, Thompson said PEN wasn’t able to figure out how to pay certain people the organization knew had gone unpaid—overwhelmingly because of the pushback PJW staff received from the finance department.
“It speaks to priorities because, to me, paying people is the number one priority … and it was very clear that this was only a priority when it made us look bad to a partner,” Thompson said.
Shah agreed, noting that PJW’s recent push to suddenly pay writers who chased money for months—and sometimes even years—overlapped with a great deal of negative publicity directed at PEN. Shah said PEN’s efforts to finally pay writers came across as “calculated.”
A political choice
Greeson agrees with Thompson that Nossel is one of PEN America’s biggest problems, which also means she is one of PJW’s biggest hurdles. Not just because she “corporatized a small nonprofit,” but because she also never seemed particularly invested in seeing PJW succeed.
“She always kind of hated the program because they took up office space, and because they had so many letters, and because people knew about them and didn’t know about other programs that she favored,” Greeson said. “It was always the target of executive directors who saw it as a drain on capacity, even though nobody at PEN really worked there [prior to 2018].”
According to former staffers, Nossel also plays an outsized role in why PEN America doesn’t embrace abolition.
“We were not even allowed to use the word abolition internally or externally on any materials, [and] we were not allowed to talk about [it],” Thompson said, noting that “the function of [abolition] work is to get people free.”
It’s not entirely unusual for an organization that obtains funding to work inside prisons to veer away from identifying as abolitionist. According to Shah, such labels can create real barriers for organizations that need to physically enter prisons to reach incarcerated people. But this is not the work that PEN does.
“[A]n organization like PEN that has so much funding and power and isn’t doing a lot of physical work in prisons—that seems to be more a political choice,” Shah said.
Romero said he understands why the word “abolition” is prohibited, but he doesn’t agree with it.
“As incarcerated writers, we don’t have the luxury of nitpicking word choice,” he said, pointing to the everyday reality of incarcerated writers having to play by the rules to avoid burning professional bridges.
“If we want our words to make it into the outside world, if we want help from an organization, if we want to network and reach other opportunities, and that means curbing word choice, then it is our duty as writers to find other ways to say the same thing. Stubbornness doesn’t get you far when you are at the mercy of other people,” Romero said.
Thompson’s take is that not committing to abolition is a form of self-preservation for PJW and PEN. Abolition envisions a future when prisons no longer exist, but many organizations and programs—PJW included—need prisons to exist so they can continue to collect funding for their work.
“If we are blind to the fact—or want others to be blind to the fact—that organizations make money off of the incarcerated soul without including the body and the freeing of those bodies, then that says a lot about how an organization feels about the population in prisons,” Buckley said.
Meanwhile, Lindqvist questions why PJW exists if it’s not to work toward abolition. “If you’re [only] promoting us writing, what is your end goal? For people to remain caged indefinitely? What is your ultimate goal?” they said.
According to Blackwell, the term “abolition” is nuanced. The writer said it appears to mean different things to different people—hence why some organizations are afraid to embrace it. But Blackwell also insists that it’s “not radical” to simply assert that everyone should be less reliant on systems of oppression—especially when working with marginalized communities.
“And that’s what abolitionism does; it works to make us less reliant on systems of harm and abuse and oppression,” Blackwell explained. “So the fact that [PEN] can’t even talk about those things just shows that their work is so watered down, that they’re not actually working authentically in this space for the people that they’re claiming to represent.”
“I don’t think they have any credibility left”
Shah and Thompson have plenty of ideas for restructuring PJW, both of them stressing the need to have incarcerated and formerly incarcerated people making decisions and helping lead the program.
Thompson said this is highly unlikely under PEN America’s current leadership.
“I don’t think the structure would have ever allowed anyone to do anything truly radical—and that’s mainly because I don’t think that leadership would have actually hired anyone that they didn’t think they could control,” they said. “It’s clear to me that the organization does not have the range to do this work ethically.”
Former PJW staffers said they regularly discussed how PEN could use its resources, connections, and status in the literary world to create a new kind of program. Instead of being centralized in New York and continuing to fail at its stated goals, PEN could work with grassroots organizations doing abolitionist work around the country, for example, or distribute its sizable money and resources to people deeply rooted in their communities who work with incarcerated writers.
Even to participants in PJW programming, this seemed like the best approach. Tretbar said organizations across the U.S. doing this kind of grassroots work have been “overshadowed by PEN America, who has somehow created this sense that the only way to support incarcerated writers is by way of a centralized and monolithic entity.” The poet was also adamant that organizations shouldn’t feel beholden to PEN’s vision—regardless of its prestige—and that smaller organizations should look for other ways to drive real change.
“I think the only way forward is through a coalition of smaller organizations that are concerned less with scalability and more with fine-tuned, localized action,” he said.
Blackwell is a board member and co-founder of Look2Justice, a grassroots organization that fights injustice in Washington state’s criminal legal system. This work means Blackwell is deeply familiar with the challenges of fundraising and having a strict budget. He’s also well acquainted with doing grassroots work.
To the incarcerated writer and activist, all signs point to PEN eventually sunsetting PJW “until there’s nothing and they’ve bled it dry.” What’s most troubling about this, he argued, is that it’s not only harmful to the incarcerated writers who’ve come to rely on this programming, but it sets a bad precedent for other arts organizations that work with incarcerated populations.
“If you gave that money to the right people and the right organizations and the authentic people in this space doing this work right, [they] would have turned this money into just an extraordinary program that functions on a very high level,” Blackwell said. “But that’s not what happened. And that’s the problem a lot of the time in these spaces. People are really good about talking about how they’re going to use the money, but they’re not really good about putting that into action.”
In spite of all the bad, Buckley said he believes PJW started with good intentions, and he wants to see what the future holds for the program. Lindqvist said the bare minimum PEN can do is bring in an outsider to do an audit of PJW and overhaul it from the ground up.
“They have an opportunity to really make a much bigger impact than they’re making,” they said. “But they’re not willing to take a look at themselves and make the changes.”
Ultimately, Thompson said PEN cares more about its reputation than making a difference in the prison and justice space.
“The resources and network that PEN America had were not being leveraged in the ways they could have been to actually create a program that was more invested in people’s freedom and wellness and in their success—beyond the handpicked few who would get the accolades,” Thompson said. But the problem, according to the former staffer, is that PEN would rather be the top organization in the field and recognized for its efforts than help create a movement of smaller, well-resourced organizations doing work at a local level.
Like other former PEN employees, Greeson left the organization to work with other groups doing similar work. He was immediately struck by the impact of far smaller groups.
“All the work that we had kind of perpetuated at PEN felt kind of empty and vacuous,” he said, likening the program to smoke and mirrors. “[It] was a great cause to show a feel-good part of what could be done. But it was never, ever realized, which is kind of sad.”
PEN America has a lot to answer for, with many across the literary industry demanding change in the organization’s practices and leadership. Thompson noted that the tide appears to be turning against the once-popular organization.
“The model of the organization really depends on the free labor of writers,” Thompson said. “So to see writers withdrawing their books, withdrawing their labor, standing against PEN publicly, and demanding that they do better is all I could have asked for—and it’s horrific that it’s come on the tails of a genocide. It’s horrific that it ever had to get to that point for so many of these things to be exposed. [But] the more that I see how the organization operates within the wider literary world, the more I believe that it shouldn’t exist … I don’t think that it is anything beyond a marketing firm for the worst kinds of liberalism.”
Greeson echoed Thompson, saying that PEN America has become less of a nonprofit and more of a corporation. Especially since Nossel took over.
“My experience was that there was always a bottom line, and programs weren’t worth it unless they could support themselves or be a cash cow for the organization,” he said. “It’s basically become like a revenue engine that’s self-perpetuating, rather than an advocacy organization.”
Thompson’s experiences within PEN have pushed them to question the organization’s approach to freedom—and, ultimately, what it means to be in service to marginalized people.
“There are really toxic and ultimately dangerous ideas about what it means to run a program like this within a nonprofit structure, especially one as toxic as PEN America’s where the leadership—as is evident now to everyone—is totally clueless and completely disconnected and doing active harm, with all of their money and their platform and the giant bullhorn that they have,” Thompson said. “I don’t think they have any credibility left.”
Disclosure: As part of PEN America’s Incarcerated Writers Bureau, Prism Features Editor Tina Vasquez was a coach paired with incarcerated writer Derek Trumbo, now a Prism columnist.
