Freedom, Put in Writing

Millions of people in the US are impacted by the criminal justice system, with nearly two million people imprisoned at any time.  

Critical perspectives about our common humanity—from parenthood and mental health to memory and freedom—are often lost when they are experienced by people who are ensnared in the system. This loss is a significant one for us all, especially considering that system-impacted writers in particular can offer insights that help deepen our understanding of the impacts of mass incarceration and imagine how we might create a more just future. 

The Writing Freedom Fellowship was created to provide writers in and outside carceral settings with professional development, mentorship support, opportunities for shared learning, and an award. The Fellowship was envisioned and funded by the Mellon Foundation and the Art for Justice Fund. It was developed and is administered by Haymarket Books. After announcing an inaugural cohort in 2024, the Fellowship was expanded to support a total of 100 writers over five years. 

Fellowship recipients advance their unique creative practices across fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction forms—while together envisioning a world beyond the criminal legal system’s punishing grasp. 

Ra Avis (2025 Freedom Fellow) is a memoirist who in her work navigates the deeply personal intersections of grief, incarceration, and disability. She writes regularly at Rarasaur.com. Avis, based in California, is currently at work on Kites Library, a zine archive that documents experiences of incarceration and re-entry following release. 

Michael Fischer (2025 Freedom Fellow) is a nonfiction writer and storyteller. In his writing he interrogates the ways in which ecological justice can play a role in dismantling the carceral state. Fischer works at the Center for Justice & Economic Advancement, a national nonprofit based in Boston. His writing appears in the New York Times, the Sun magazine, Lit Hub, Guernica, Orion, and elsewhere.

Faylita Hicks (2025 Freedom Fellow) is the author of A Map of My Want (2024) and HoodWitch (2019). Based in Chicago, they are currently working on their debut memoir about their incarceration, A Body of Wild Light: The Fall and Rise of An American Poet (2026). Hicks is a Right of Return Fellow and the winner of the 2020 Sappho Poetry Award. 

Crystal Wilkinson (2024 Freedom Fellow) is from Indian Creek, Kentucky. Her books include Praisesong for the Kitchen Ghosts, The Birds of Opulence, and Perfect Black. She has won an O. Henry Prize for her short fiction and edits Screen Door Press, publishing diverse fiction throughout the Black diaspora. 

Marcelo Hernandez Castillois (2024 Freedom Fellow) the author of Children of the Land: a Memoir, Cenzontle, and Dulce. He is a founding member of the Undocupoets, which eliminated citizenship requirements from all major poetry book prizes in the US. He teaches at St. Mary’s College and the Ashland University Low-Res MFA program. 

Michele Scott (2024 Freedom Fellow) is an essayist, author, and prison reform advocate. She served thirty years on a sentence of life without the possibility of parole in the world’s largest women’s prison in California—until granted a governor’s commutation. Her writing has been published in Elle and the Marshall Project among others.