New article about PLP in Berkeleyside…

A reporter at local Bay Area news site Berkeleyside ended up interviewing multiple volunteers and attending sessions, and the result was this great write-up on our books to prisoners program.

Here’s the intro, for context: “Most nights in Berkeley, volunteers with the Prisoners Literature Project, the largest nonprofit of its kind in the Bay Area, will sit around a table in an office next to a chiropractic clinic, picking letters from a box that are addressed to them by people incarcerated in facilities across the country. 

Each letter comes from an inmate hoping for something to read. Many ask for sci-fi thrillers, true crime stories and something that can teach them a trade. Comic books are in high demand. The most common request is for a dictionary. 

The letters come with requests for specific titles or genres, but also with messages of gratitude and encouragement. “For many of us, [books] are our escape, a figurative (and sometimes literal) doorway to freedom.” “I am a lifer with no parole. Have no family alive anymore. Y’all are the only communication I’ve had.” “My facility banned books for a few months but now the ban is lifted! Yay!””

You can read more over on the Berkeleyside website, and thanks to Daniel Ekonde for writing the piece.