Kathie Klarreich on Don’t Shake the Spoon: A Journal of Prison Writing: Nonfiction

Darren Tinker’s career as an electrician was derailed when he spent more than three years in Florida state prisons for a crime he did not commit. Now, at 27, his passions include writing, acting, singing, and public speaking, and it’s through these platforms that he hopes to share his perspectives on life, love, and family with the world. He was a participant in several semesters of Exchange for Change classes and a member of its Student Leadership Council.

Eyone Williams is an author, film producer, transformative mentor, and violence prevention specialist working with the Washington, D.C., Department of Youth Rehabilitation Services. He’s also a book club facilitator and advocate with Free Minds Book Club & Writing Workshop. Incarcerated as a teenager, Williams served 17 years in prison before being released in 2010. He is featured in the anthology When You Hear Me (You Hear Us): Voices on Youth Incarceration.

Julia Mascioli is the deputy director of the Free Minds Book Club & Writing Workshop. She oversees all programming for Free Minds members incarcerated in the District of Columbia Jail, juvenile detention facility, and federal prisons across the country. She is a co-editor of the anthology When You Hear Me (You Hear Us): Voices on Youth Incarceration, and her short fiction has been published in several literary magazines, including the Bellevue Literary Review, Witness, and Bellingham Review.

Kathie Klarreich founded the Miami-based prison writing nonprofit Exchange for Change in 2014, after a 24-year career as a journalist, half of which was spent in Haiti reporting for print, radio and television, including Time, The New York Times, ABC, and NPR. She is the author of Madame Dread: A Tale of Love Voudou and Civil Strife in Haiti and a contributor to two anthologies: So Spoke the Earth and Women, Writing, and Prison. Klarreich started facilitating writing workshops in the correctional system in 2009 and began the writing exchanges with academic institutions in 2013. Don’t Shake the Spoon: A Journal of Prison Writing, is a curriculum and resource guide for facilitating Exchange for Change programs in communities.

Nick Vagnoni teaches writing at Florida International University. His poetry has appeared in Columbia Journal, Mid-American Review, Terrain, and elsewhere. He is also the co-author of Forager: A Subjective Guide to Miami’s Edible Plants (Jai-Alai Books).

Paul Feigenbaum is an associate professor of English at Florida International University and co-editor of the Community Literacy Journal. He recently completed a three-year position directing Project THINC: Teaching Humanities in the New Context, a Mellon-funded grant to facilitate curricular development and scholarship for humanities faculty at FIU. His research, teaching, and engagement interests include community literacy, generative failure, transdisciplinary problem-solving, justice entrepreneurship, and the intersections between rhetoric and psychology. His scholarship has appeared in journals including Pedagogy, College English, and Reflections. His book Collaborative Imagination: Earning Activism through Literacy Education was published by Southern Illinois University Press. He has been teaching writing courses with Exchange for Change since 2019.