Arthur has had his essay on forming and ending relationships while in prison published concurrently in Vice and The Marshall Project. It’s a moving piece of writing.
Prison Is Killing My Prison Romance
I’m in the yard, staring up at the concrete-colored clouds, when my last name and prison number erupt from the loudspeaker atop the wall, announcing I have a visitor. She’s here. At the gate, a guard asks why I’m in the yard in the first place if I knew I’d have a visit.
The hopeful resilient human spirit behind bars
Zek: An American Prison Story (2016), by Arthur Longworth, captures the tedious and mundane, the miserable and disappointing, the irrational and vicious aspects of doing time behind bars. But it also offers keen assurance that, in spite of these highly toxic dynamics, the resilient human spirit retains the ability to hold on to a hopeful attitude.
Mitch Ryals has written an article that reveals Zek’s inspiration as well as the publishing story behind Zek.
Barred from Books
click to enlarge Arthur Longworth’s dog-eared manuscript was inconspicuously shuffled among the other essays that the volunteer English teacher had to grade. Held together with a thick black clip, the tattered document had yet to be read by anyone beyond prison walls.
We want to congratulate Arthur for winning a PEN award for his essay, “The Yard.” The award ceremony is November 28th at The Greene Space in New York. You can read the essay here.
Prison Writing Award Winners: 2015-2016 | PEN America
Every year hundreds of inmates from around the country submit poetry, fiction, nonfiction, and dramatic works to PEN’s Prison Writing Contest, one of the few outlets of free expression for the country’s incarcerated population. Manuscripts come to the Prison Writing Program in a variety of forms: some are handwritten, some are typed, some are written in the margins of legal documents.
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