Memoir Against Mass Incarceration
Date(s)
- March 22, 2017 | 6:00 pm
On Wednesday, March 22nd, Dave Coogan, along with Kevin Belton, Stan Craddock, and Dean Turner, co-authors of Writing our Way Out: Memoirs From Jail, will be attending the Virginia Festival of the Book in Charlottesville, VA, at the Northside JMRL Library (705 Rio Rd. West, 22901). From 6 PM to 8 PM, the authors will host a talk, titled “Memoir Against Mass Incarceration,” after which copies of their book will be available for sale and signing. This event is free and open to the public.
Detailing the formative and transformative memories of ten men, Writing Our Way Out is the creative culmination of a writing class that began in the Richmond City Jail in Virginia. Compiled in a narrative by their teacher, Dr. David Coogan, these stories explore the conditions, traps, and turning points on the path to imprisonment in modern America, as well as the redemptive and rehabilitative power of memoir.
As Coogan writes, “This is a work of creative non-fiction. It’s my memoir of teaching a writing class to prisoners. And it’s ten prisoners’ memoirs, written with this hope in mind: that each man might understand the story of his life, and in so doing, change its course.”