Doing time
Subtitle: twenty-five years of prison writing
By: edited by Bell Gale Chevigny ; foreword by Helen Prejean.
Contributors: Chevigny, Bell Gale.; American Center of P.E.N.
Edition: 1st ed.
Publisher: Arcade Pub.; Distributed by Time Warner Trade Pub.
Published: 1999
Place of publication: New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 349
Subjects: Prisoners' writings, American.; Prisoners -- Literary collections.; Prisons -- Literary collections.; American literature -- 20th century.
Description: "Doing Time," For the prison writers whose work is included in this anthology, it means more than "serving a sentence"; it means staying alive and sane, preserving dignity, reinventing oneself, and somehow retaining one's humanity.

For the last quarter century the prestigious writers' organization PEN has sponsored a contest for writers behind bars to help prisoners face these challenges. The contest honors the best short stories, plays, essays, and poems among hundreds submitted annually by men and women nationwide.

Bell Chevigny, a writer herself and a former prison teacher, has selected the best of these to create Doing Time - a timely, beautiful, sometimes devastating, but vital work, which demonstrates resoundingly that prison writing is a vibrant branch of American literature.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. [322]-324).
"A PEN American Center prize anthology."