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SUMMER READING CORNER

Freedom of Vision , edited by Stephen B. Gladish and Robert Yehling

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Nearly 3 million men and women in the United States wake up behind bars every day. All or part of their lives are conscripted to society, but for many, their minds and souls soar beyond the thousands of correctional facilities into the ever-free world of imagination and creative expression. They write stories, poetry, letters, lyrics, essays and plays of great depth and substance, giving us eyes into the hearts and souls of a world that makes most people shudder, and rightly so. After all, they live the consequences of the shadow side of humanity when it is acted out. These men and women—sons, daughters, brothers, sisters, parents and grandparents—find freedom in their ability to create and express their inner worlds and outer imaginations.

Welcome to Freedom Of Vision, an anthology of short fiction, essays and poetry from behind the walls and razor wire of America's correctional facilities.

The 125 pieces in Freedom Of Vision represent correspondence with inmates, correctional facility instructors and ex-convicts who have become accomplished writers. We spent 4 1/2 years gleaning material from more than 800 submissions from Alaska to Florida, Massachusetts to California, then editing and compiling the anthology. We stuck to two criteria that sets this anthology apart from others:

1) No writing program, group of students, or area, was favored over another; and
2) Pieces about everyday guard-inmate problems and diatribes against the judicial system were not accepted. We focused on contributors who hitched their minds to a pair of wings, and offered up their finest work.

• Freedom of Vision Lead
• Excerpts from Freedom of Vision
• Contents and Contributors