Prison Publications feat. Victoria Law

Victoria Law returns to the Beyond Prisons podcast to talk about prison publications and curating art and writing by incarcerated people.

Victoria tells us about the zine she's organized for nearly 16 years, Tenacious, which is a DIY publication featuring the work of incarcerated women from around the country. She talks about her introduction to zines, her experiences curating content from incarcerated people, and how she's had to deal with obstacles to communication in putting the zine together.

We discuss how zines like Tenacious help incarcerated women overcome their isolation and learn how to cope with their imprisonment by creating a platform for sharing knowledge. We talk about the topics women write about and how it can be a space for escape and liberation. We also talk about why this zine, in particular, is important because of the way most free literature projects predominantly serve men.

Victoria tells us about her learning process, the work that goes into making the publication, and her efforts to fund it, as well as the reasons why these publications are meaningful opportunities for incarcerated people.

Victoria Law is a freelance journalist. She is a co-founder of Books Through Bars--NYC, which sends free books to incarcerated people nationwide and the editor of Tenacious, a zine of art & writings by women in prison. She is the author of Resistance Behind Bars: The Struggles of Incarcerated Women and the co-author of the upcoming Your Home is Your Prison, which explores how proposed “alternatives” to incarceration expand the carceral system. You can follow her on twitter at @LVikkiml and see more of her work at victorialaw.net.

For more history about Tenacious, see: http://www.grassrootsfeminism.net/cms/node/117

To buy current and past issues on-line, go to: http://tenaciouszine.storenvy.com/

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Music & Production: Jared Ware