May 9, 2025 • 22 mins
Storytelling has the power to transcend barriers, even prison walls. Meet Cassandra Lewis, an award-winning writer whose creative journey illuminates how literature can build bridges where society often constructs divides.
When Lewis began mentoring through PEN America's Prison and Justice Writing Program, she expected to guide an incarcerated writer. What emerged instead was a profound partnership with Geneva Phillips, an accomplished writer whose memoir and poetry had already garnered recognition. Their exchange of letters evolved beyond writing critique into a friendship that transformed Lewis's own creative work. Through Phillips' guidance, Lewis finally unlocked a personal manuscript she'd struggled with for years—a testament to mentorship's reciprocal nature.
The conversation explores how incarcerated writers consistently return to themes of community and connection in their work. As Lewis describes it, these narratives reveal the resilience of the human spirit in maintaining relationships despite systematic attempts to sever them. Yet practical obstacles abound: mail digitization means incarcerated people never touch original letters from loved ones; censorship creates communication uncertainty; and unexpected facility transfers can abruptly end friendships without goodbyes.
Lewis's own creative work sits at the intersection of arts and advocacy. Her fellowship-funded play examines extreme sentencing through the story of an estranged grandmother and granddaughter reconnecting across prison barriers. Rather than providing easy answers, Lewis uses storytelling to explore complex questions about criminal justice, mental health systems, and human connection. "Great storytelling inspires conversation," Lewis explains, "and that's how things get started, that's how things get moving."
For writers considering similar mentorship programs, Lewis emphasizes the importance of literary citizenship—supporting other writers and participating in the ongoing conversation of ideas. Her experience with PEN America surpassed all expectations, personally and professionally transforming both mentor and mentee.
Ready to discover how storytelling can build empathy and inspire change? Listen now to this thought-provoking conversation about writing, justice, and the power of human connection.
The Delaware Division of the Arts, a branch of the Delaware Department of State, is committed to supporting the arts and cultivating creativity to enhance the quality of life in Delaware. Together with its advisory body, the Delaware State Arts Council, the Division administers grants and programs that support arts programming, educate the public, increase awareness of the arts, and integrate the arts into all facets of Delaware life. Learn more at Arts.Delaware.Gov.
Delaware State of the Arts is a weekly podcast that presents interviews with arts organizations and leaders who contribute to the cultural vibrancy of communities throughout Delaware. Delaware State of the Arts is provided as a service of the Division of the Arts, in partnership with NEWSRADIO 1450 WILM and 1410 WDOV.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:09):
For Delaware State of the Arts, I'm Andy Trescott.
Today's guest is CassandraLewis, an award-winning writer
whose work spans creativenonfiction, fiction and
playwriting.
Her writing has appeared in theNew York Times, the New Yorker,
the Rumpus and more Recentlyshe's been the recipient of the
PEN America La Engle Roman Prizefor mentorship and an
(00:33):
individual artist fellowshipfrom the Delaware Division of
the Arts.
Cass also mentors through PENAmerica's Prison and Justice
Writing Program and teachescreative writing over at the
Delaware Art Museum.
Please welcome to the stagetoday Cassandra Lewis and
Cassandra.
As we kick off here, talk to usa little bit about what brought
(00:53):
you into the field of not onlykind of creative writing but the
literature and theater world.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
I got started in storytelling.
I think I was inspired by mydad, who was a journalist, and
he always was really great attelling stories and finding
stories that were interesting,and as a child I found theater
to be a refuge, a great safeplace to really put my emotions
into it, and so theater willalways be my first love.
(01:24):
But over the years I've beenvery fortunate to get to kind of
expand my writing into otherforms and it's been really just
a wonderful pleasure getting towork with other writers as they
expand their writing and topicsthat they're interested in.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
The award brings up a fact that you know there's
writing for writing's sake,there's writing for publishing's
sake, but then there's alsokind of writing for
interpersonal or kind of socialjustice sake.
Talk to us a little bit aboutwhat the PEN America Prison and
Justice Writing Program is andhow it is you got involved and
maybe what you kind of take awaymost from programs such as this
(02:03):
.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
Yes, thank you.
So I had been a member with PENAmerica for many years before I
applied to be a writing mentor.
I had heard about this program,which is the Prison and Justice
Writing Program, which pairsabout 300 established writers on
the outside with about 300writers who are currently
(02:25):
incarcerated.
And it's not a pen pal program,it is a mentorship program
where the writers are exchangingletters that are specific to
projects that the writers areworking on, and so I applied in,
I think the writers are workingon, and so I applied in, I
(02:47):
think, 2022.
And I didn't hear back for awhile.
I think they had a lot going onin their program.
But then, when I did hear backfrom them, they paired me with
this amazing writer named GenevaPhillips, and Geneva had
already published an amazingmemoir called Disappearing in
Glimpses, and she had a greatbackground in poetry and had won
(03:08):
, I think, three of the PennPrison Awards, which they offer
every year to incarceratedwriters.
And then they publishanthologies of the awards in
multiple forms poetry,nonfiction, playwriting, fiction
, everything and it's really awonderful way to read the work
(03:31):
of incarcerated writers and alsolearn a little bit more about
what is happening inside prisons, which you know so much of we
don't really know if we are notexperiencing it firsthand.
So it was amazing that theypartnered me with such an
amazing writer.
I felt very fortunate and itdidn't take long for me to see
that this was really more of apartnership rather than me being
(03:55):
a mentor, because Geneva and Iwe exchange ideas about things,
we compare notes on what wethink about things we've read.
It's more of just having awriting buddy that we're
commiserating together.
You know the specifics may bedifferent, but we're writing
about similar themes in somecases, and even when we're not,
(04:17):
I mean, it's just nice to havethat exchange.
So I was really thrilled when Iheard that she had nominated me
and when I read her essay.
It was one of the happiestmoments of my life because we
had become friends and Icertainly didn't expect anything
like that, and I had the honorof already seeing her work
(04:37):
expand in all these ways, and soit was just such a wonderful
gift to get to read that justsuch a wonderful gift to get to
read that.
Speaker 1 (04:46):
You bring up a point there about themes, and I wonder
, in a program such as this, arethere commonalities among some
of the writings that you seecoming out and, if so, maybe
what's one that you might wantto highlight?
Speaker 2 (04:55):
There are commonalities, I think one of
the biggest ones is theimportance of community, and so
one of Geneva's short nonfictionpieces which placed, which was
one of the finalists for one ofthe awards, I think it's called
the Hard Part and it's about anexperience of all of a sudden
being told, after living forseveral years in one facility,
(05:20):
that all of a sudden, at somecrazy hour, like three in the
morning, you're going to have topack up what little belongings
you have and move to anotherfacility where you don't even
have time to say goodbye to thefriends you've made and grown
close to over those years.
And it's written in such a waythat is, it's just honest and
(05:42):
vulnerable and just also kind ofvery matter of fact that this
is a common practice.
And I remember reading that andjust being moved to tears and
it was so beautiful the way shewrote it and it was thought
provoking.
And other pieces I've read byother incarcerated writers are
(06:03):
also about different aspects ofcommunity and what it means to
continue having a community evenwhen you are completely closed
off from the rest of the world.
You're closed off from yourfamily and your job and the life
that you had.
As you know You're forced tocreate new relationships, but
(06:24):
even those relationships aresometimes broken away from you.
Reading those stories andseeing the resilience and how
these stories, even though thespecifics of each one are very
different, just seeing thatimportance of connection and
community, which I think issomething that every human being
(06:44):
can probably relate to on somelevel, In her essay or her
letter she goes on to say thatyou saw her before she fully
believed in herself.
Speaker 1 (06:54):
And I wonder if you can maybe share some of the
turning points in thatrelationship for you both, where
maybe you did in fact kind ofsee her and her potential before
maybe she saw it herself.
Speaker 2 (07:04):
That was a very generous thing that she wrote.
I mean, I could tell when Ifirst read her letters that this
is someone who cares aboutwriting, who is interested in
writing, who has read a lot.
I think maybe she was a littlebit nervous and self-conscious
because she didn't have the samekinds of privileges and
(07:25):
opportunities that I had with my, you know, getting my education
, and so I think for her thatmight have been something.
I mean I know, because she hadsaid this to me before that that
was something that, you know,took a little bit of getting you
know comfortable with, and Iwas nervous in the beginning too
because I had heard so much andread so much about a lot of the
(07:48):
censorship that goes on.
Especially, you know, right nowthere's this rise of male
digitalization, which means whenyou send a letter it's not
going directly to the prison,it's going to what's called a
distribution center where acompany is paid to scan the
original and send a digital copyto the incarcerated person.
(08:10):
So that means if you're aparent and you want to receive a
drawing that your child made,you don't get to actually touch
the paper that they touched orsee the drawing firsthand.
You're getting a digital scanof that they touched or see the
drawing firsthand.
You're getting a digital scanof that.
And then you know there's thewhole question of books.
(08:32):
Some books are not allowed incertain facilities and it's not
always clear why, and of coursewe're seeing that you know
outside as well.
So I was nervous in thebeginning that I would write
something that would potentiallyput her in a difficult
situation.
So I was very careful with howI would write about, you know,
things that were just.
You know we're talking aboutliterature, but you never know
(08:54):
what someone who is reading itout of context might think.
So there was always thisfeeling like, even though we're
having these great deep layeredconversations, there's always
this feeling that you're beingwatched and read, and so it took
me a long time to get used tothat, because I'm not living
inside the way she is.
(09:15):
But so that was a whole process.
But over time we just continuedtalking about the projects we
were each working on andexchanging information, and the
more we wrote to each other, themore comfortable I think we
both became.
Speaker 1 (09:30):
Someone who writes in multiple genres either memoirs,
fiction, plays I'm sure thiskind of back and forth letter
writing can help influence kindof how you write yourself in
your own kind of creativetoolbox, and I wonder if you
could share a little bit aboutmaybe some of the learnings or
some of the improvements you'vemade in your own writing since
beginning a process like this.
Speaker 2 (09:52):
So before I started working with Geneva, I was
really struggling with amanuscript that I've spent, I
think, the last five yearsworking on, and it's a creative
nonfiction book that I use apersonal story about my mother's
own struggles with mentalhealth and how they were
criminalized.
I use that story as thenarrative vehicle, but it's
(10:14):
really a book that looks at thefailure of certain systems, how
there's no safety net for peoplewho are in need of these
services, and so part of what Iwas struggling with before I
started working with Geneva isthat I was so far removed from
what I was writing about.
(10:35):
Like, in some ways, when I hadthe personal narrative part, I
was really in the story andthose were kind of the best
parts, I think, of the book.
But then I kept trying to zoomout and connect it to these
bigger social issues, which wasthe whole reason I was sharing.
That kind of story was to addto the conversation, but I was
having a really hard timebalancing the personal narrative
(10:59):
with these big picturephilosophical questions of like
how do we improve these things?
Thankfully, you know, geneva wasjust so generous with sharing
her insight, even just throughher example of writing really
great nonfiction herself, evenjust through her example of
(11:32):
writing really great nonfictionpage, and so that is an example
of how this relationship reallywas reciprocal.
You know, she really helped mewith that aspect.
And then I finally reached apoint in the manuscript where
I'm just now starting to shareit with people who maybe they'll
never publish it, I don't knowbut at least I'm at the point
(11:52):
where I feel like it's prettyclose to finished.
Speaker 1 (11:55):
I mean sure One of the obstacles, right when it
relates to kind of this back andforth communication, is
obstacles like mail delays asyou bring up digitization and
censorship within kind of prisoncommunication.
So as a writer, how do you kindof maintain that creativity and
momentum when facing thoseobstacles?
Speaker 2 (12:14):
maintain that creativity and momentum when
facing those obstacles?
Yeah, it is very difficult, andwhen one of the anthologies
that PEN America was publishingfor the incarcerated writers
came out I think it was the onein 2023, I wanted to help spread
the word so that people wouldfind out about these great
anthologies and also helppromote Geneva's work that was
included in it.
(12:35):
So I pitched a story to theRumpus and I said, hey, I'd love
to do an interview of thisreally great incarcerated writer
.
And they were very nice andsaid great, do it.
And so we had beencorresponding back and forth
through the mail, through Penn'sprogram, which is where you
upload into their system andthen they mail it.
(12:56):
But what happened was, once Isent Geneva the questions, I
didn't hear anything back andour deadline was looming, and so
I thought, well, what's goingon?
I know that she really wants todo this.
So I contacted Penn and I saidyou know, I'm not sure what's
going on.
I don't know if this iscensorship or what.
So then I sent another letterto Geneva and I said you know,
(13:19):
if it gets to be this date and Ican't remember what it was
sometime in January, and youknow you haven't received the
questions.
Here they are again.
I said, if it gets to be thislate, call me.
And I gave her my phone numberand thankfully she got that
letter like the day before ourdeadline and I had in the
meantime written a backup essaythat was all about censorship,
(13:43):
just in case we didn't get it,and I was still going to quote
all of Geneva's great work in it.
But it would have been atotally different piece.
Thankfully we were able to doit over a series of phone calls
where I just transcribed with myhand.
I'm not a very fast writer.
It was kind of funny, but wedid it.
We made the deadline and it wasamazing, but it was definitely.
(14:05):
It made me think about thesemail delays.
Speaker 1 (14:08):
So tell us more about what that fellowship provided
you in the sense of being ableto kind of further your career
and or maybe bring into viewother opportunities you might
not have been able to do before,that now you were able to kind
of accomplish.
Speaker 2 (14:26):
Yes, thank you.
Yes, the Delaware Division ofthe Arts does a lot of amazing
things.
I feel like I've been able todiscover a lot of great talent
here in Delaware, other artiststhat I'm excited to connect with
, and certainly receiving thatindividual artist fellowship in
2021 made it possible for me towell, I created a new play
(14:49):
during that time and it was aninteresting year because it was
2021.
So it was still the pandemicand a lot of theaters were
closed, and so I ended upworking on a project that that
was not what I had originallyimagined I would write, because
I suddenly was challenged by theidea of, okay, how are we going
(15:10):
to put on a play if we can'tget a physical theater space and
people can't show up in person?
And it ended up being thisamazing experience where I
really had to think outside ofthe box, and so I reimagined.
I wrote a completely differentstory.
I actually and that story isalso about prison I was going to
write about painters originally, and then this became a story
(15:36):
about extreme sentencing andsolitary confinement, and it was
a two-hander play.
It had a woman who is aparalegal trying to get people
released early release due toCOVID and the other character
turns out to be the long lostgrandmother of the paralegal,
(15:56):
and there's estrangement and aninteresting backstory about why
this grandmother character wasincarcerated.
What it really ends up beingabout is their connection and
the importance of community, andhow nothing is really ever what
it seems on the surface, andhow important it is to look at
(16:17):
each individual story.
But we were able to do thisproduction on Zoom and, thanks
to the Dramatists Guild inPhiladelphia, they did an online
staged reading for me, which Iinvited some people I look up to
, and including the executivedirector of the ACLU of Delaware
(16:38):
, and he liked it so much thathe offered to do another
performance, to sponsor anotherperformance of it, to help
highlight some of the great workthat they were doing at the
ACLU, and so then we ended upgetting two performances out of
this, and none of this wouldhave come about if I hadn't
received the Individual, andTanya Lazar were the stars of
(17:00):
the show and they werephenomenal.
Speaker 1 (17:21):
I was going to say a lot of your work sounds like it
lives at the center of the artsand mentality, right?
So, like arts and incarceration, arts and mental health, how do
these experiences kind ofinform your art, your activism
and maybe like the way you seeyour future projects moving?
Speaker 2 (17:39):
Sometimes it is hard to see what it is you're working
on until someone tells you whatit looks like.
And I think you're right.
I mean, I think that'sdefinitely a fair assessment,
especially the last five or sixyears.
Those are definitely the topicsI'm looking at and really,
whether I'm writing plays,fiction or nonfiction it is true
(18:00):
I do write about.
These are things that I careabout, that I'm curious about,
and I feel like most goodwriting is an exploration, and
so I'm writing to try tounderstand these social justice
issues.
I'm trying to understand how wegot here, how we can move
(18:21):
forward, how we can rebuild.
So it is an exploration and Ifeel like I'm trying different
forms to kind of get atdifferent angles of these
questions.
I don't have any answers, but Idefinitely find that being
obsessed with these questionsdefinitely is what moves me
forward as a writer.
Speaker 1 (18:42):
What role do you feel literature, mentorship or
storytelling can play in kind oftransforming these systems of
justice or yes, I love thatquestion.
Speaker 2 (18:55):
I think that writing I've always looked at writing as
a form of communication, firstand foremost, and when we can
experience other people'sstories whether we're listening
to someone else's story, readingsomeone else's story or writing
our own story it is the firststep of connecting with someone
(19:17):
else.
Literature and storytellingbuilds empathy and it can deepen
connections between people.
Once we start caring and startunderstanding more about
people's stories, then it startsraising other questions about
systemic issues and we thinkabout social responsibility and
(19:42):
other questions about okay, howcan I as a person do more, how
can I use whatever I have at mydisposal to help this situation
or at least not make it worse?
And I think that these arefundamental, important questions
that are just part of the humancondition, and that's one of
(20:03):
the reasons why I lovestorytelling and I care about
storytelling is because it's away that we can all move forward
together, and we can.
Great storytelling inspiresconversation and that's how
things get and that's how thingsget started, that's how things
get moving.
But it all starts with peoplesharing their stories and
(20:24):
connecting with each other inthat way.
Speaker 1 (20:26):
What do you think you would share with writers
considering becoming eithermentors through PEN, america or
similar programs that they mighthave in their communities?
Speaker 2 (20:35):
I think that it's important to be a good literary
citizen.
I think part of writing andpart of storytelling is, you
know, it's a conversation.
We're all in conversation witheach other.
Part of that is, you know,seeing what other writers are
writing about, listening toother writers, supporting other
writers in whatever way you can.
(20:57):
I love PEN America's mentorshipprogram and it really surpassed
anything I expected.
I really really feeltransformed personally and
professionally by the wholething, and it's been great for
Geneva, too.
The same week we found outabout the award.
Geneva, too, the same week wefound out about the award, we
(21:22):
actually found out that she isone of the fellows for Writing
Freedom Fellowship and it'sthrough Haymarket Books and the
Mellon Foundation, and so it'sjust one of these wonderful
things where you start workingon something, you start an
exchange and it becomessomething completely different
and transcends to a differentlevel.
Speaker 1 (21:39):
So we've come to the end of our time.
I'd love to thank Cassandra forjoining me today.
If you'd like to learn moreabout her or read some of her
work, you can visit her websiteat CassandraLewiscom.
Thank you.
For Delaware State of the Arts, I'm Andy Trescott.
Today's guest is CassandraLewis, an award-winning writer
whose work spans creativenonfiction, fiction and
playwriting.
Her writing has appeared in theNew York Times, the New Yorker,
the Rumpus and more Recentlyshe's been the recipient of the
PEN America La Engle Roman Prizefor mentorship and an
(00:33):
individual artist fellowshipfrom the Delaware Division of
the Arts.
Cass also mentors through PENAmerica's Prison and Justice
Writing Program and teachescreative writing over at the
Delaware Art Museum.
Please welcome to the stagetoday Cassandra Lewis and
Cassandra.
As we kick off here, talk to usa little bit about what brought
(00:53):
you into the field of not onlykind of creative writing but the
literature and theater world.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
I got started in storytelling.
I think I was inspired by mydad, who was a journalist, and
he always was really great attelling stories and finding
stories that were interesting,and as a child I found theater
to be a refuge, a great safeplace to really put my emotions
into it, and so theater willalways be my first love.
(01:24):
But over the years I've beenvery fortunate to get to kind of
expand my writing into otherforms and it's been really just
a wonderful pleasure getting towork with other writers as they
expand their writing and topicsthat they're interested in.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
The award brings up a fact that you know there's
writing for writing's sake,there's writing for publishing's
sake, but then there's alsokind of writing for
interpersonal or kind of socialjustice sake.
Talk to us a little bit aboutwhat the PEN America Prison and
Justice Writing Program is andhow it is you got involved and
maybe what you kind of take awaymost from programs such as this
(02:03):
.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
Yes, thank you.
So I had been a member with PENAmerica for many years before I
applied to be a writing mentor.
I had heard about this program,which is the Prison and Justice
Writing Program, which pairsabout 300 established writers on
the outside with about 300writers who are currently
(02:25):
incarcerated.
And it's not a pen pal program,it is a mentorship program
where the writers are exchangingletters that are specific to
projects that the writers areworking on, and so I applied in,
I think the writers are workingon, and so I applied in, I
(02:47):
think, 2022.
And I didn't hear back for awhile.
I think they had a lot going onin their program.
But then, when I did hear backfrom them, they paired me with
this amazing writer named GenevaPhillips, and Geneva had
already published an amazingmemoir called Disappearing in
Glimpses, and she had a greatbackground in poetry and had won
(03:08):
, I think, three of the PennPrison Awards, which they offer
every year to incarceratedwriters.
And then they publishanthologies of the awards in
multiple forms poetry,nonfiction, playwriting, fiction
, everything and it's really awonderful way to read the work
(03:31):
of incarcerated writers and alsolearn a little bit more about
what is happening inside prisons, which you know so much of we
don't really know if we are notexperiencing it firsthand.
So it was amazing that theypartnered me with such an
amazing writer.
I felt very fortunate and itdidn't take long for me to see
that this was really more of apartnership rather than me being
(03:55):
a mentor, because Geneva and Iwe exchange ideas about things,
we compare notes on what wethink about things we've read.
It's more of just having awriting buddy that we're
commiserating together.
You know the specifics may bedifferent, but we're writing
about similar themes in somecases, and even when we're not,
(04:17):
I mean, it's just nice to havethat exchange.
So I was really thrilled when Iheard that she had nominated me
and when I read her essay.
It was one of the happiestmoments of my life because we
had become friends and Icertainly didn't expect anything
like that, and I had the honorof already seeing her work
(04:37):
expand in all these ways, and soit was just such a wonderful
gift to get to read that justsuch a wonderful gift to get to
read that.
Speaker 1 (04:46):
You bring up a point there about themes, and I wonder
, in a program such as this, arethere commonalities among some
of the writings that you seecoming out and, if so, maybe
what's one that you might wantto highlight?
Speaker 2 (04:55):
There are commonalities, I think one of
the biggest ones is theimportance of community, and so
one of Geneva's short nonfictionpieces which placed, which was
one of the finalists for one ofthe awards, I think it's called
the Hard Part and it's about anexperience of all of a sudden
being told, after living forseveral years in one facility,
(05:20):
that all of a sudden, at somecrazy hour, like three in the
morning, you're going to have topack up what little belongings
you have and move to anotherfacility where you don't even
have time to say goodbye to thefriends you've made and grown
close to over those years.
And it's written in such a waythat is, it's just honest and
(05:42):
vulnerable and just also kind ofvery matter of fact that this
is a common practice.
And I remember reading that andjust being moved to tears and
it was so beautiful the way shewrote it and it was thought
provoking.
And other pieces I've read byother incarcerated writers are
(06:03):
also about different aspects ofcommunity and what it means to
continue having a community evenwhen you are completely closed
off from the rest of the world.
You're closed off from yourfamily and your job and the life
that you had.
As you know You're forced tocreate new relationships, but
(06:24):
even those relationships aresometimes broken away from you.
Reading those stories andseeing the resilience and how
these stories, even though thespecifics of each one are very
different, just seeing thatimportance of connection and
community, which I think issomething that every human being
(06:44):
can probably relate to on somelevel, In her essay or her
letter she goes on to say thatyou saw her before she fully
believed in herself.
Speaker 1 (06:54):
And I wonder if you can maybe share some of the
turning points in thatrelationship for you both, where
maybe you did in fact kind ofsee her and her potential before
maybe she saw it herself.
Speaker 2 (07:04):
That was a very generous thing that she wrote.
I mean, I could tell when Ifirst read her letters that this
is someone who cares aboutwriting, who is interested in
writing, who has read a lot.
I think maybe she was a littlebit nervous and self-conscious
because she didn't have the samekinds of privileges and
(07:25):
opportunities that I had with my, you know, getting my education
, and so I think for her thatmight have been something.
I mean I know, because she hadsaid this to me before that that
was something that, you know,took a little bit of getting you
know comfortable with, and Iwas nervous in the beginning too
because I had heard so much andread so much about a lot of the
(07:48):
censorship that goes on.
Especially, you know, right nowthere's this rise of male
digitalization, which means whenyou send a letter it's not
going directly to the prison,it's going to what's called a
distribution center where acompany is paid to scan the
original and send a digital copyto the incarcerated person.
(08:10):
So that means if you're aparent and you want to receive a
drawing that your child made,you don't get to actually touch
the paper that they touched orsee the drawing firsthand.
You're getting a digital scanof that they touched or see the
drawing firsthand.
You're getting a digital scanof that.
And then you know there's thewhole question of books.
(08:32):
Some books are not allowed incertain facilities and it's not
always clear why, and of coursewe're seeing that you know
outside as well.
So I was nervous in thebeginning that I would write
something that would potentiallyput her in a difficult
situation.
So I was very careful with howI would write about, you know,
things that were just.
You know we're talking aboutliterature, but you never know
(08:54):
what someone who is reading itout of context might think.
So there was always thisfeeling like, even though we're
having these great deep layeredconversations, there's always
this feeling that you're beingwatched and read, and so it took
me a long time to get used tothat, because I'm not living
inside the way she is.
(09:15):
But so that was a whole process.
But over time we just continuedtalking about the projects we
were each working on andexchanging information, and the
more we wrote to each other, themore comfortable I think we
both became.
Speaker 1 (09:30):
Someone who writes in multiple genres either memoirs,
fiction, plays I'm sure thiskind of back and forth letter
writing can help influence kindof how you write yourself in
your own kind of creativetoolbox, and I wonder if you
could share a little bit aboutmaybe some of the learnings or
some of the improvements you'vemade in your own writing since
beginning a process like this.
Speaker 2 (09:52):
So before I started working with Geneva, I was
really struggling with amanuscript that I've spent, I
think, the last five yearsworking on, and it's a creative
nonfiction book that I use apersonal story about my mother's
own struggles with mentalhealth and how they were
criminalized.
I use that story as thenarrative vehicle, but it's
(10:14):
really a book that looks at thefailure of certain systems, how
there's no safety net for peoplewho are in need of these
services, and so part of what Iwas struggling with before I
started working with Geneva isthat I was so far removed from
what I was writing about.
(10:35):
Like, in some ways, when I hadthe personal narrative part, I
was really in the story andthose were kind of the best
parts, I think, of the book.
But then I kept trying to zoomout and connect it to these
bigger social issues, which wasthe whole reason I was sharing.
That kind of story was to addto the conversation, but I was
having a really hard timebalancing the personal narrative
(10:59):
with these big picturephilosophical questions of like
how do we improve these things?
Thankfully, you know, geneva wasjust so generous with sharing
her insight, even just throughher example of writing really
great nonfiction herself, evenjust through her example of
(11:32):
writing really great nonfictionpage, and so that is an example
of how this relationship reallywas reciprocal.
You know, she really helped mewith that aspect.
And then I finally reached apoint in the manuscript where
I'm just now starting to shareit with people who maybe they'll
never publish it, I don't knowbut at least I'm at the point
(11:52):
where I feel like it's prettyclose to finished.
Speaker 1 (11:55):
I mean sure One of the obstacles, right when it
relates to kind of this back andforth communication, is
obstacles like mail delays asyou bring up digitization and
censorship within kind of prisoncommunication.
So as a writer, how do you kindof maintain that creativity and
momentum when facing thoseobstacles?
Speaker 2 (12:14):
maintain that creativity and momentum when
facing those obstacles?
Yeah, it is very difficult, andwhen one of the anthologies
that PEN America was publishingfor the incarcerated writers
came out I think it was the onein 2023, I wanted to help spread
the word so that people wouldfind out about these great
anthologies and also helppromote Geneva's work that was
included in it.
(12:35):
So I pitched a story to theRumpus and I said, hey, I'd love
to do an interview of thisreally great incarcerated writer
.
And they were very nice andsaid great, do it.
And so we had beencorresponding back and forth
through the mail, through Penn'sprogram, which is where you
upload into their system andthen they mail it.
(12:56):
But what happened was, once Isent Geneva the questions, I
didn't hear anything back andour deadline was looming, and so
I thought, well, what's goingon?
I know that she really wants todo this.
So I contacted Penn and I saidyou know, I'm not sure what's
going on.
I don't know if this iscensorship or what.
So then I sent another letterto Geneva and I said you know,
(13:19):
if it gets to be this date and Ican't remember what it was
sometime in January, and youknow you haven't received the
questions.
Here they are again.
I said, if it gets to be thislate, call me.
And I gave her my phone numberand thankfully she got that
letter like the day before ourdeadline and I had in the
meantime written a backup essaythat was all about censorship,
(13:43):
just in case we didn't get it,and I was still going to quote
all of Geneva's great work in it.
But it would have been atotally different piece.
Thankfully we were able to doit over a series of phone calls
where I just transcribed with myhand.
I'm not a very fast writer.
It was kind of funny, but wedid it.
We made the deadline and it wasamazing, but it was definitely.
(14:05):
It made me think about thesemail delays.
Speaker 1 (14:08):
So tell us more about what that fellowship provided
you in the sense of being ableto kind of further your career
and or maybe bring into viewother opportunities you might
not have been able to do before,that now you were able to kind
of accomplish.
Speaker 2 (14:26):
Yes, thank you.
Yes, the Delaware Division ofthe Arts does a lot of amazing
things.
I feel like I've been able todiscover a lot of great talent
here in Delaware, other artiststhat I'm excited to connect with
, and certainly receiving thatindividual artist fellowship in
2021 made it possible for me towell, I created a new play
(14:49):
during that time and it was aninteresting year because it was
2021.
So it was still the pandemicand a lot of theaters were
closed, and so I ended upworking on a project that that
was not what I had originallyimagined I would write, because
I suddenly was challenged by theidea of, okay, how are we going
(15:10):
to put on a play if we can'tget a physical theater space and
people can't show up in person?
And it ended up being thisamazing experience where I
really had to think outside ofthe box, and so I reimagined.
I wrote a completely differentstory.
I actually and that story isalso about prison I was going to
write about painters originally, and then this became a story
(15:36):
about extreme sentencing andsolitary confinement, and it was
a two-hander play.
It had a woman who is aparalegal trying to get people
released early release due toCOVID and the other character
turns out to be the long lostgrandmother of the paralegal,
(15:56):
and there's estrangement and aninteresting backstory about why
this grandmother character wasincarcerated.
What it really ends up beingabout is their connection and
the importance of community, andhow nothing is really ever what
it seems on the surface, andhow important it is to look at
(16:17):
each individual story.
But we were able to do thisproduction on Zoom and, thanks
to the Dramatists Guild inPhiladelphia, they did an online
staged reading for me, which Iinvited some people I look up to
, and including the executivedirector of the ACLU of Delaware
(16:38):
, and he liked it so much thathe offered to do another
performance, to sponsor anotherperformance of it, to help
highlight some of the great workthat they were doing at the
ACLU, and so then we ended upgetting two performances out of
this, and none of this wouldhave come about if I hadn't
received the Individual, andTanya Lazar were the stars of
(17:00):
the show and they werephenomenal.
Speaker 1 (17:21):
I was going to say a lot of your work sounds like it
lives at the center of the artsand mentality, right?
So, like arts and incarceration, arts and mental health, how do
these experiences kind ofinform your art, your activism
and maybe like the way you seeyour future projects moving?
Speaker 2 (17:39):
Sometimes it is hard to see what it is you're working
on until someone tells you whatit looks like.
And I think you're right.
I mean, I think that'sdefinitely a fair assessment,
especially the last five or sixyears.
Those are definitely the topicsI'm looking at and really,
whether I'm writing plays,fiction or nonfiction it is true
(18:00):
I do write about.
These are things that I careabout, that I'm curious about,
and I feel like most goodwriting is an exploration, and
so I'm writing to try tounderstand these social justice
issues.
I'm trying to understand how wegot here, how we can move
(18:21):
forward, how we can rebuild.
So it is an exploration and Ifeel like I'm trying different
forms to kind of get atdifferent angles of these
questions.
I don't have any answers, but Idefinitely find that being
obsessed with these questionsdefinitely is what moves me
forward as a writer.
Speaker 1 (18:42):
What role do you feel literature, mentorship or
storytelling can play in kind oftransforming these systems of
justice or yes, I love thatquestion.
Speaker 2 (18:55):
I think that writing I've always looked at writing as
a form of communication, firstand foremost, and when we can
experience other people'sstories whether we're listening
to someone else's story, readingsomeone else's story or writing
our own story it is the firststep of connecting with someone
(19:17):
else.
Literature and storytellingbuilds empathy and it can deepen
connections between people.
Once we start caring and startunderstanding more about
people's stories, then it startsraising other questions about
systemic issues and we thinkabout social responsibility and
(19:42):
other questions about okay, howcan I as a person do more, how
can I use whatever I have at mydisposal to help this situation
or at least not make it worse?
And I think that these arefundamental, important questions
that are just part of the humancondition, and that's one of
(20:03):
the reasons why I lovestorytelling and I care about
storytelling is because it's away that we can all move forward
together, and we can.
Great storytelling inspiresconversation and that's how
things get and that's how thingsget started, that's how things
get moving.
But it all starts with peoplesharing their stories and
(20:24):
connecting with each other inthat way.
Speaker 1 (20:26):
What do you think you would share with writers
considering becoming eithermentors through PEN, america or
similar programs that they mighthave in their communities?
Speaker 2 (20:35):
I think that it's important to be a good literary
citizen.
I think part of writing andpart of storytelling is, you
know, it's a conversation.
We're all in conversation witheach other.
Part of that is, you know,seeing what other writers are
writing about, listening toother writers, supporting other
writers in whatever way you can.
(20:57):
I love PEN America's mentorshipprogram and it really surpassed
anything I expected.
I really really feeltransformed personally and
professionally by the wholething, and it's been great for
Geneva, too.
The same week we found outabout the award.
Geneva, too, the same week wefound out about the award, we
(21:22):
actually found out that she isone of the fellows for Writing
Freedom Fellowship and it'sthrough Haymarket Books and the
Mellon Foundation, and so it'sjust one of these wonderful
things where you start workingon something, you start an
exchange and it becomessomething completely different
and transcends to a differentlevel.
Speaker 1 (21:39):
So we've come to the end of our time.
I'd love to thank Cassandra forjoining me today.
If you'd like to learn moreabout her or read some of her
work, you can visit her websiteat CassandraLewiscom.
Thank you.
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