Here are some volunteers processing book requests in our new space:

A volunteer at work opening letters for upcoming sessions:

Our official request box waiting for volunteers to pick a letter:

Each letter has to be checked in our restrictions binder. We have a section for each state with each city listed as every prison has their own rules about what can be sent:

There is a handy library directory mounted on the wall for volunteers to locate books on a particular subject:

Volunteers browsing for books that will match the book requestor’s stated interests. This is the fun part!

A volunteer with a book selection:

An invoice receipt listing each book title has to be completed and included in each package. Volunteers are encouraged to write a note on the back. It’s sometimes the only contact an incarcerated person has outside the prison so they are much appreciated:

This is a poster on our wall that includes tips about how to fill out the address label and receipt. It’s very important to do it correctly. Points for good handwriting and double checking the prison id!

This is a “half slip” that we send in response to some letters. The dreaded “Do Not Send” is because some prisons won’t accept packages from us for whatever reason and we need to let the book requester know. Sometimes we simply want more info from the writer as to what types of books they’d like to receive.

Our supply station. Lots of envelopes and lots of tape!

It’s postage time! The ideal package will be under 3 lbs though sometimes the perfect book requires some extra weight.

A completed package ready to send!

We do a fair amount of special handling of letters. For example, some Pennsylvania letters have to be sent through a security processing center so we pull those out for volunteers to package up in a specific manner. This is becoming more and more common for different states, alas. Fortunately, we have volunteers willing to handle these controlled cases.

This is our thank you letter rack. It holds letters that have been sent to the attention of a particular volunteer. This is usually because the volunteer wrote a particularly nice note on the back of a receipt and the incarcerated person is responding with appreciation for the personal touch:

Some of our favorite really great thank you notes are posted on a bulletin board for all to see and be inspired by. (There are more online too)

The Prisoners Literature Project is excited to continue its initiative working with local bookstores in the Bay Area, highlighting books that can be bought for prisoners directly at high-quality independent book stores.

Please shop at these excellent stores who all gave up precious space to support the PLP!

The following bookstores have set up display shelves with books to donate to the PLP. Each display features:

– a sign with the PLP logo
– paperbacks customers can buy for those inside
– flyers about PLP’s ongoing work
– free PLP bookmarks.

In the East Bay:
East Bay Booksellers (formerly Diesel Books; 5433 College Ave. Rockridge) 
Moe’s Books (2476 Telegraph Ave in Berkeley)
Books Inc. (1491 Shattuck Ave, Berkeley.)
Pegasus Books (in downtown Berkeley at 2349 Shattuck Ave & at 1855 Solano Ave., Berkeley.)
Owl & Company Bookshop (3941 Piedmont Ave., Oakland)
Walden Pond Books (3316 Grand Ave, Oakland)
Cape & Cowl Comics (1601 Clay St, Oakland)
Banter Bookshop (3768 Capitol Avenue Suite F, Fremont)

in San Francisco:
Green Apple Books on the Park (1231 9th Ave, SF)
Fabulosa Books (489 Castro St, SF. Their display of LGBTQ titles was compiled with invaluable input from PLP volunteers and Madison’s LGBT Books-to-Prisoners.)
Bound Together Books (1369 Haight St, SF – our original book store partner!)

in the North Bay:
Napa Bookmine (1625 2nd St. Napa, CA 94559)

Of course, none of this would be possible without the long-term support of stores like Moe’s Books (at 2476 Telegraph Ave, Berkeley); and the Mothership, the Bound Together Bookstore (1369 Haight St., SF). We’d also like to thank Community Thrift in San Francisco for selling books on our behalf and donating the proceeds.

(Thanks to PLP volunteers Rachel, Peter, Jamie, Bruno, Ali, Gina & others for their help setting this up!)

Each package PLP sends to an incarcerated reader usually includes 1-4 books. However, there are a number of other great resources that may be nestled in the envelope. We thought we would share some of these items that we have created or that come to us from other books-to-prisoners groups.

Prisoners Literature Project Ordering Guidelines — This handout offers some details about PLP and clarifies what kinds of books we have available. It gives some info about the process of requesting books and the importance of clear handwriting among other things. Fortunately, in the age of smart phones we are often able to sleuth out the actual prison id # or discern the true last name spelling by going online to double-check!

Prisoner Activist Resource Center (PARC) National Prisoner Resource Directory — This is an invaluable resource that is included in every package (unless forbidden by a particular prison). Letter writers frequently request the latest version of the PARC. It includes details on a range of resources for incarcerated people including: educational resources, prison/writing arts programs, religious/spiritual projects, death penalty resources, etc. This truly useful document is put out by the PARC group based in Oakland, CA. It’s really worth browsing through the PDF version here.

We the People Legal Primer — PLP does not send out legal books, but we will package up this primer, which was developed by the Books to Prisoners Program in Quincy, MA. It’s a really handy 80-page document that includes the Constitution of the U.S., legal vocabulary definitions, basic judicial doctrines and other related references.

Reference By Mail Guide Sheet — PLP sometimes gets specific questions about a topic in the letters we receive. It’s tempting to print out something from Wikipedia. However, there are libraries and other orgs that will respond to these reference questions. What a great service! So, we created this guide sheet with all the details of how to get questions answered by the pros.

Pen Pal Service Sheet — As you can imagine many incarcerated people are seeking contact with the world beyond bars. Often letter writers say they’re seeking pen pals to write to and help pass the time. Pen pal services for imprisoned people come and go as there is huge demand and logistics. We send out information about one service, Adopt an Inmate, that is still up and running.

Other items that PLP sends out in response to specific requests include a sheet explaining why we don’t stock conspiracy-related books and a compilation of wicca/pagan articles as that’s a quite popular area of interest.

How cool is this? Jo, who works at Cape and Cowl Comics in Oakland, saw one of our displays at Pegasus Bookstores in Berkeley. He wants to support our efforts so he contacted us to find out if PLP would partner with Cape and Cowl Comics too! This was an easy YES as we receive many requests for graphic novels but it’s really hard for us to source them.

So, next time you’re in Oakland, be sure to stop by and see the store. It’s a nice environment with an amazing selection for you to peruse. Thanks again to Jo and store owner Eitan Manhoff for making this happen.

We’re welcoming in the new year with some more uplifting letters and warm holiday greetings from book recipients. It’s always a treat to pull a letter from the current stack and find artwork or kind words from someone who appreciates our efforts. It’s also gratifying because it confirms our books are making it into the hands of eager readers.

We sometimes get requests for very specific books that we stock via remainder orders. Usually someone has seen the book because another incarcerated person at their facility has received it. Word gets out! Sometimes there’s a flurry of letters from a specific prison because our program information has been passed along. We also stamp the inside of books with our address so even if the book recipient doesn’t receive the invoice with the nice note from a volunteer that we send (some prisons are really strict -ugh) they will know that the books came from us. Whatever it takes!

We love getting feedback from book recipients. This arrived in the mail recently and we are sharing it here with the permission of author.

Here’s some wonderful bead art sent to us, as a ‘thank you’ from an incarcerated person receiving books from the PLP.

We’re continuing to work through the pandemic here at Prisoners Literature Project, with individual co-ordinators answering letters solo for safety reasons. And we’re still getting lots of thank you letters from grateful prisoners.

So we thought we’d present three of them here – so we can pass along the sense of gratitude prisoners have when we’re able to get them books with your kind help.

So please keep supporting us, and we’ll keep getting books out to incarcerated people in these trying times.

The Belly Of The Beast documentary, “An exposé of human rights abuses in women’s prisons, highlighting modern-day eugenics & reproductive injustice”, has announced a holiday book drive in association with the Prisoners Literature Project.

Here’s the full information from the film’s Twitter feed:

More information on the documentary itself and how to view it is available on the film’s official website. We’d like to thank them for their kind partnership.