Free Minds conducts book clubs and writing workshops with four groups at the DC Jail: young adults (18-24) on the Young Men Emerging Unit, incarcerated women, and groups in both English and Spanish with adults pursuing education on the education unit. We read and discuss literature that is relevant to our members’ lives. Members have chosen books like An American Marriage by Tayari Jones, La Fruta del Borrachero (Fruit of the Drunken Tree) by Ingrid Rojas Contreras, and Free Cyntoia: My Search for Redemption in the American Prison System by Cyntoia Long-Brown. Click here for lists of books read in the Jail Book Club: Young Adult Book Club, Women’s Book Club, Mentes Libres (Spanish Book Club).
Free Minds has brought many guest authors to visit the Jail Book Club. Past visitors have included Chris Wilson (The Master Plan), Danielle Evans (Before You Suffocate Your Own Fool Self), Tony Lewis Jr. (Slugg: A Boy’s Life in the Age of Mass Incarceration), Emmanuel Jal (War Child), Dwayne Betts (A Question of Freedom, Shahid Reads His Own Palm), Coe Booth (Tyrell), Jonathan Franzen (The Corrections, Freedom), George Pelecanos (The Way Home, The Wire), Kenji Jasper (Dark, Dakota Grand, Seeking Salamanca Mitchell, The House on Childress Street and Snow), James McBride (The Color Of Water and Miracle at St. Anna), Etan Thomas (More Than An Athlete), Dave Slater (contributing writer to DC Noir), Ellen McCarthy (staff writer for The Washington Post), spoken word artist Messiah, and author, actor, and activist Hill Harper (Letters to an Incarcerated Brother).