Overview
- The database currently profiles 21 writers across 12 states, featuring biographies, writing samples, and contact information.
- The site offers step-by-step guidance on contacting, compensating, and editing writers in custody, with resources addressing prison-specific constraints.
- Publishers, agents, and media can submit opportunities that will be posted online and printed in a quarterly newsletter distributed to incarcerated writers.
- The initiative was developed with support from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, with the digital experience designed by Zealous.
- PEN America frames the bureau as a response to censorship and restricted communications that have sidelined prison authors, with participants including Christopher Blackwell and Ivié DeMolina.