I was conducting a guest writing workshop at Susanville State Prison in northern California. Most inmates were there for drug-related offenses, housed in crowded dormitories with no privacy. I was apprehensive; unlike other prisons with cells, this environment seemed unconducive to writing.
I decided on a two-day monologue workshop, hoping writing and performance could restore a sense of identity stripped away by prison life. Twenty men signed up—my maximum. I spent the first hour speaking about the joy and freedom of writing, how it allows individuality in a place that enforces uniformity.
The men listened intently and worked hard. However, one young, handsome blond man worried me. He was reluctant to share, constantly erasing and restarting his work, shielding his paper when I approached. "It would be easier for me if you didn't," he'd say with a shy smile.
His need for privacy concerned me. Having worked in prisons for years, I recognized the deep-seated lack of self-confidence many inmates carry from childhood abuse. He took his writing back to his dormitory that night, unlike others who left theirs behind. He knew I'd be tempted to read it.
On the second day, for recording, he returned with combed hair and a pressed shirt. He watched quietly as others performed monologues from the perspectives of figures like God or Martin Luther King Jr.
When he was the last one left, he hesitated. Encouraged by his peers, he finally stood before the camera, his hands shaking. He began:
"My name is Bruce. I am twenty-one years old and I am dead... I died because I didn't care... I would kill for my next fix."
He described a childhood of poverty, alcoholic parents, beatings, hunger, and foster homes. As he read, he showed scars—cigarette burns from his father, cuts on his wrists from suicide attempts. Tears filled my eyes.
Then he reached his conclusion:
"I have risen again... I am reborn. One day a woman came in and told me to write... I wrote out my ugly life, and finally felt pity for myself... and joy. I was a writer! This..." he held up his manuscript, "is more important than any drug. I died a drug addict and was reborn a writer."
We were stunned into silence, then erupted into applause. He took my hands—a rule violation I allowed. "You have given me something no drug ever has," he said. "My self-respect."
I often think of him. I pray he continues to find respect through the written word. That day, in that room, a writer was born. A lost soul had come home—to words.