Editing Projects

That's a Pretty Thing to Call It (New Village Press, 2023)

A collection of writing (some previously published) by artists, professors, and activists who’ve taught their art to incarcerated or court-involved people. Submissions include poetry, fiction, and non-fiction pieces by folks who’ve volunteered or worked in prisons across the United States (plus one from Greece). Highlights include poems and stories from acclaimed writers Paisley Rekdal (Utah State Poet Laureate), Ellen Bass, Idra Novey, E. Ethelbert Miller, Christopher Soto, Jill McDounough, and Helen Elaine Lee, arts in corrections pioneer Buzz Alexander, and Guggenheim Award-winning choreographer Pat Graney. The collection features 46 unique contributors (plus additional foreword and afterward writers), with intentions to highlight the voices of BIPOC, women, and queer-identifying artists.

Praise:

"“That’s a Pretty Thing shows us that it is possible to seek beauty from hell; that it is possible to cultivate sweetness and honesty in the face of brutality and betrayal. We learn that buried deep in the American carceral system are people. People who love and hurt and think and grow. People who have something to say if only we would listen.”" ~Cynthia W. Roseberry, Acting Director, ACLU Justice Division; project manager of President Obama’s Clemency Initiative; founding board member of Georgia Innocence Project.

"“Sugar and the collected writers contend with the emotional upheavals and moral hazards of teaching in prisons. Here, in knife-edged detail, is prison’s mundane hell: the “ceremonies” of entry and exit, the arbitrary rules, the pointless cruelties. Here, too, are careful portraits of incarcerated students and writers, who challenge their would-be teachers and write with an urgency that most of us will never possess.”" ~Marshall Thomas, attorney, public defender, writer

"“This book has translated the ancient and forgotten language of the dead into the organic syllable of the living. As the Prince in Hamlet identifies “the undiscovered country from whose bourn no traveller returns,” the prose and poetry warriors in That's a Pretty Thing to Call It go where the dead white poets feared to tread – beyond the silk veil that separates the living from the civilly dead.”" ~Michael Rhynes, author of Guerrillas in the Mist, Pushcart Prize nominee, poet, playwright, and solo performance artist.

"Brilliantly illuminates truths about incarceration ... Prisons are built to separate the incarcerated from the rest of the community, to silence their voices ... Works like That’s a Pretty Thing to Call It expose the cruelty and absurdity of that intention." ~Arts Fuse

9 Lines: Creative Writing by Veterans

Edited and designed (internal content and cover) anthology of poetry and prose by writers in NYU’s Veteran Writers Workshop.

Michigan Review of Prisoner Creative Writing

Selected and edited prose and poetry by incarcerated writers for volumes 4-6 of the Prison Creative Arts Project’s annual anthology.