Media Advisory
Tennessee Prison For Women Inmates Debut Their Own Literary Journal At Reading And Reception Thursday
Lipscomb University Students Worked Alongside Inmates As Editors, Designers For Journal
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WHAT: |
Fourteeen inmates of the Tennessee Prison for Women and eight Lipscomb University students will hold a reading and reception at the prison to debut the first issue of a new literary journal they created: "Chiaroscuro", featuring more than 20 poems, essays and drawings by inmates at the prison. Copies of "Chiaroscuro" will be available at the reading on Thursday. |
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WHEN: |
Thursday, April 23, 2009, check in at the gate for entrance at 5:30 p.m. The reading begins at 6 p.m. |
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WHERE: |
Tennessee Prison for Women, 3881 Stewarts Lane, Nashville, Tennessee 37243 |
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WHY: |
Participants in Lipscomb's LIFE program (Lipscomb Initiative for Education) were impressed by Lipscomb's student literary journal, Exordium, last year. So they suggested creating their own literary journal to provide the public with a glimpse of their struggles in prison and in their daily lives. In addition, the journal will be used to raise awareness for the LIFE program, which brings traditional Lipscomb students out to the prison once a week to study alongside the inmates for college credit. Upon release, the inmates can transfer the credits to any college of their choice. |
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WHO: |
The authors and editors will be reading from the works collected and edited over the course of the spring semester. Richard Goode, Director of the LIFE program, will be on hand to explain the program, which currently provides college-level, liberal arts education for 27 inmates in two cohorts. Christin Shatzer, Director of the SALT program, which requires Lipscomb students to participate in service-learning in order to graduate, will be available for comments. The literary journal project was a milestone project conducted through the SALT program this semester. |
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PROGRAM HISTORY: |
Fourteen inmates at the Tennessee Prison for Women have been taking Lipscomb University courses (from judicial process and ethics to art appreciation and literature of prisons) for more than two years. The LIFE program, a unique program in that it offers college credit for inmates, added a second cohort of 13 students this spring semester. Beginning in January, seven Lipscomb students in an editing class and one student in the art program have visited the prison once a month to help the inmates edit, design and compile the literary journal as part of the program's first extracurricular activity. |
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HIGHLIGHTS OF THE JOURNAL: |
The inmates chose the title "Chiaroscuro", which is an art term relating to the contrast between light and dark. Themes of various works include relationships, both inside and outside a prison environment, motherhood, loss and abandonment. "It was incredibly uplifting and moving to read these stories because they are so willing to put that raw emotion out there. There is a sense of frustration at inustice in the system, a sense of abandonment, a real intense awareness of loss. They are not complaining and not whining. They are recognizing what we all have, and that is a sense of loss. I would hope (this journal) will be a way for outside readers to get a real sense of who these people are as individuals, and to recognize they have the same kinds of emotions, highs and lows, the same kind of aspirations and fears that we all have." - Dana Carpenter, Lipscomb English Professor and Supervisor of the Lipscomb student who helped create "Chiaroscuro." |