In collaboration with the Poetry Project, PEN America will present its 2019 Prison Writing Awards Anthology at St. Marks Church on Sept. 18. The evening will feature exceptional work from writers who are currently incarcerated, read by authors, actors and prison-reform activists. Each year, hundreds of imprisoned writers from around the country submit poetry, fiction and nonfiction to the contest and the winning pieces are compiled into a collection.
At the St. Marks event, readers will include Margo Jefferson, Shaun Leonardo, T. Kira Madden, Cortney Lamar Charleston, Rachel Eliza Griffiths and others.
The 2019 PEN America Prison Writing Awards is an official event of the Brooklyn Book Festival. The reading will begin at 7 p.m. at 131 E. 10th St. and is free and open to the public.