Early 2019, nearly a year before anyone had even heard of a Covid pandemic, Dr. Joan Parkin spent a chilly January weekend in prison—Mule Creek State Prison to be exact. As an English professor at Feather River College, cofounder of the Incarcerated Student Program that enabled in-person college classes in California’s prisons, and soon-to-be-founder of the Social Justice Prisoners Journalism Club—which would allow Feather River College students to act as interns for the prison newspaper The Mule Creek Post—Dr. Parkin had been granted special permission to visit the newsroom over the weekend. It was more than a social call, however. Joan Parkin had been collecting stories from incarcerated students for ten years, many of which were about their experiences of being incarcerated and how education had lifted them up. Along with editors from the Post, she spent the weekend pouring over stacks of mostly handwritten pages, rereading, sorting, and editing selections that would be included in her compilation anthology of prisoner essays entitled Perspectives from the Cellblock.
It is no routine matter for a civilian to be granted access to prison grounds on a Saturday-Sunday, but anybody who knows Joan Parkin also knows when she is around, nothing is routine. Her unique and dynamic presence seems to energize the room, inspiring others to elevate their game to try and keep up. As an educator, activist, and social justice advocate, she has amassed an impressive resume of accomplishments, not the least of which is being instrumental in freeing death row inmates and helping get the death penalty abolished in Illinois, organizing and hosting an education roundtable event at Mule Creek that is still talked about to this day, and most recently leading the Vanguard Incarcerated Press (VIP) as director to uplift incarcerated voices across the country, promoting much needed social justice in the nation’s prisons.
Perspectives from the Cellblock is the kind of book that leaves a mark on those who take the time to get lost in its pages. It is filled with stories of desperate lives and desolate circumstances, many where authors found redemption and revitalization through education and inspiration from Parkin herself. It’s the kind of writing that reveals the vulnerable, human side of writers who have been branded inhumane and/or experienced the most inhuman events. VIP is intimately familiar with how writing can change lives for the better; through the written word, we discover our humanity emerging from beneath the layers of scar tissue that have disguised who we really are and what the truth of our authentic selves reveals. Through the self-exploratory searching of the writing process, we may begin to understand that when we ignore our own truth, we become, as James Baldwin says, “immobilized in the prison” of our “own undiscovered self.”
In an effort to raise awareness, over the next months, we will share the finer points of writing, publishing, and prison journalism in works such as Perspectives from the Cell Block in The Uncaged Writer column. It is a world anyone with a pen and paper, imagination, and a dream can access. We’d like to help you in your writing, publishing, and journalism journey, and we invite you to join us as we explore the infinite nature of the creative process. VIP looks forward to your questions and inquiries, and your submissions. Perspectives from the Cell Block (ISBN-10: 1700186647) is available on Amazon. All profits from sales will go towards the VIP.
