Inside Out Takes A Turn

Teaching Memoir in Prison

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It’s official. I start teaching Memoir next week, at the same prison where I taught journalism.

There’s still a lot I don’t know. Will some of the same men from my last class return? Will new people sign up? Will they even want to tell their personal stories?

This isn’t the first time I’ve taught a memoir class in prison. But it’s been years (pre-Covid) and the last time I taught this course was in a maximum security facility. Teaching it in a medium security prison will be more challenging for a couple of reasons.

First, it’s a more transient population. When I taught at MFMF (that’s my ridiculous acronym for “My First Maximum Facility”, because in this newsletter I don’t name the prisons where I teach for privacy reasons), no one was going anywhere. I didn’t have one man drop out or get transferred. People in max facilities are there for the long haul.

But at TMSF (sorry for the awful abbreviations - this one is “This Medium Security Facility”) guys are transferred out frequently, some get in trouble and are sent to “the hole” and others have conflicts come up because there are more programs offered at this prison.

Second, having a less stable population means it’s harder to build trust in the classroom, and trust is a key component to writing strong memoir. You don’t want to reveal personal or sensitive material with people who won’t respect your confidence. This next course is only eight weeks, hardly time to set up a safe space.

But I’ll do the best I can.

Right now, I’m furious at myself because I’ve been hunting around my home office bookshelves to look for memoirs that I can use as writing examples.

Last fall, I moved to a new place. As I packed, I got into a kind of manic state and began giving away a lot of my stuff. Half my clothes are gone. (That’s okay - it’s given me an excuse to get some new things.) But my BOOKS! What was I thinking?

I donated at least half of them - to libraries, second hand book shops. What a bone-headed move. There’s not a single dress, shirt or pair of pants I miss, but I’m always looking for titles that I seem to have gotten rid of. My local library is lovely but small, and it takes weeks when you order a book.

In other news, during my break from teaching, I started my first novel. Lord knows what possessed me. Well, the idea germinated from a story I heard from a friend. Basically, it was about a long-simmering disagreement between a woman and her daughter-in-law.

I’ve been playing with writing short chapters alternating their voices and points of view. It’s fun - kind of like having a puppy on a leash. “Oh, you’re going over there now? Okay. Now you want to sniff something up there? Let’s go see.” It’s as if the story is leading me instead of the other way around.

Time for me to get back to Lesson Plan number one. And to find wherever I put my transparent, prison-approved tote bag. I know it’s going to be really hot in that classroom. And that I need to be properly covered up regardless - light clothing might be transparent, too revealing, etc to make it past security.

I’ll let you know how the first class goes.