Mission
The mission of the The Pen is to provide an open, engaging, interactive community for inventive and capable incarcerated, confined and at-risk populations, with the participation of artists in the community, who seek to use creative writing and literature as positive and proactive mechanisms for self-expression and self-actualization.
Vision
The Pen aspires to tap into the veiled, hidden and untapped creative and literary talent of its participants, exposing them to a variety of literary genres, writers and works, while beckoning them to commit their own thoughts and words into print. Ultimately, The Pen provides participants with a tangible body of their original work and encourages them to continue writing as a proactive, positive, lifelong process that commits their experience to record, provides an outlet for expression and restores a sense of personal purpose and agency.
Overview
The concept for The Pen originates with the thought that the act of writing presents a world of unfettered opportunity that exists independent of the racial, ethnic, gender, religious, educational or socioeconomic identification or affiliation of the individual. This is even true for the seldom seen, rarely discussed, often ostracized segment of the population that happens to be incarcerated, otherwise confined or deemed at-risk.
The Pen is guided by the belief that creative writing provides a welcome and often necessary outlet for all people. All people can benefit from the act of self-expression, of recording one’s thoughts or forever capturing a feeling or scene on a sheet of paper. The Pen also operates under the premise that, of course, all people are not designed to be the next Pulitzer Prize-winning or otherwise acclaimed author; however, virtually all people have a capacity for transmitting their experience, their truth, their reality, their pain and their belief through writing in a way that is personally transformative and of benefit to hearers of their words. This is particularly of functional and unquantifiable benefit for people who find themselves restricted.
Here, participants will view themselves beyond the confines of their current existence. Through The Pen, their dynamic selves and positive attributes will shine. Their efforts will not be in vain, and they shall leave with a demonstrative record of their contribution and work.