In October, Freedom Reads received over 100 letters from people who are incarcerated, our first time crossing this milestone. For someone like me, who spent seven days short of 30 years in prison, sleeping in 11 different facilities across two states, this milestone is deeply personal. I know firsthand the power of a letter, the way it can pierce through the isolation and remind someone Inside that they are still seen, still valued, still connected to the outside world…still somebody.
When you’re locked up, hearing your name shouted during a mail call is more than a moment, it’s a lifeline. You stay patient, acting as if you don't care either way as the officer approaches, though you are straining to catch their voice. And when they stop to slide an envelope under the door, and your name is on it? That’s magic. But when they walk past without a word, it’s devastating. It’s a gut punch that echoes in the silence of your cell, a reminder of how profoundly disconnected you can feel.
This is why Freedom Reads’ Kites from the Inside program, which connects us with folks locked up across the country through the written word, matters so much. Every letter we receive is more than correspondence—it’s a story, a glimpse into someone’s life, a reminder of our shared humanity. These letters hold gratitude, pain, hope, and longing. They are the hugs you can’t give or receive behind bars, somehow folded into an envelope.
Sometimes, the paper a letter is written on tells its own story. It may have sat dormant, affixed to a writing pad purchased in the prison commissary five, 10, or even more than 20 years ago, waiting for the right words to be written. Other times, a simple “thank you” might arrive on a Freedom Reads postcard handed out during a Freedom Library opening or literary event. These humble materials carry an extraordinary weight.
I often think about the people who don’t write, not because they don’t want to, but because they’ve been silenced by the system, beaten down by years of not getting responses to kites flown over the walls with the hope of something back. They’ve stopped believing that their words matter, or that anyone would read them if they did. For every letter we receive, we know that there are thousands more stories still untold.
Some letters stand out as testaments to the resilience and belief in what we do. I’ll never forget the first $30 donation we received in the mail, sent by Mary, an incarcerated woman at Central California Women’s Facility. It came as an official Department of Corrections check from their Inmate Accounts Office, a stark reminder of how institutionalized even generosity can become. That $30 wasn’t just money; it was faith. Faith in the power of books, in the transformative impact of libraries and literature. Faith that Freedom Reads shows up. I could go on for days talking about what essential items $30 can buy in the prison commissary, but Mary sent the money to Freedom Reads instead.
It’s moments like these that fuel our work. And this month’s milestone was made possible in part by people like Earnest in Chino, California. As part of the Inmate Advisory Council on A-Yard, he organized a campaign to send thank you letters to Freedom Reads. His leadership brought us an outpouring of messages, each one a reminder of why we do this work.
In this digital age, with platforms like CorrLinks and JPay enabling email-like communication and phone systems like Securus facilitating calls, the handwritten letter holds a particularly special place. These letters are tangible artifacts of connection. The paper might carry the faint scent of a prison cell or the smudge of ink from a tired hand. They feel deeply personal, as though each one is addressed not just to Freedom Reads as an organization but to me, personally. Mail call again, only this time on the outside.
For every Earnest in Chino, there are countless others who haven’t yet found their voice. For every Mary who donates, there are thousands who can’t afford to but nonetheless embrace the same belief in what we do. And for every letter we receive, there are thousands who don’t write because they’ve forgotten, or have never known, that someone might write back.
The letters push us to do better, to reach more people, to fight against what prison does to the spirit that makes people feel invisible in the first place. In them, I see my own story. This milestone, 100 letters in a single month, isn’t just a number. It’s a call to action. It’s a reminder that there are lives on the other side of those envelopes, and they matter. They are worthy of our time, our effort, our words.
At Freedom Reads, we believe in the power of books, of libraries, of stories—and of letters. Because when someone cares enough to write back, it changes everything. And, we write back every single time.