Note to Self

So I'm working on this book about the prison writing workshops. It's pretty much dead in the water, but yesterday I dove in to begin editing. The main idea is emerging and has to be incorporated, cleaned up, made more front and center. Specifically, I claim that the workshops provide space, a language-rich environment, and an audience for which the inmates can compose and perform. They have to bring desire, imagination, and courage to step up and into their work. The benefits of creative self-expression  are seeing a bigger possibility, learning to express and communicate, seeing through another's eyes, and beginning to imagine a narrative of what a life has been, what a life might be. How to love, work, play, die, and be all arise as subjects in our talk. In short, what is imagined as humanly possible becomes the basis for expression, and, with any luck, action. It may be enough to pull me and them through some rough spots.