Create Me Free

Create Me Free was a non-profit arts and writing organization which I founded in 1999. The organization was designed to give a voice to incarcerated adults who were not being heard through other outlets. In addition to being an organization which raised awareness about activist issues related to the prison system, Create Me Free also worked actively to encourage incarcerated adults to motivate themselves towards change. The basic tenet of the organization was that self-expression can lead to self-understanding which leads to emotional growth. The medium for that self-expression was writing.

Through Create Me Free, I created, edited and published a quarterly arts and writing magazine of the same name. This magazine saw successful distribution to the Create Me Free mailing list (consisting of activist organizations and concerned individuals) through zine distros and in placement at several bookstores throughout the country. While running Create Me Free, I participated in several conferences to spread this work and the message of the organization. This allowed me to do networking with other social-literary organizations and to contribute my own writing to some of their efforts.

In 2003, I terminated Create Me Free for a number of reasons. A main reason was the fact that I had little working knowledge of how to run a non-profit organization and decided to return to school to gain additional expertise. Instead of ending the program completely, I solicited the assistance of volunteers to continue the program on a one-to-one basis. Inmates already involved in the program were linked with mentors who worked with them through the mail to develop their writing and reach a broader audience.

Create Me Free has been defunct since that time but the work started there lives on. Several mentors still send letters to me to let me know about their continued work. One mentor has assisted two different writers to get published in her local newspapers, including one who got a position as a weekly columnist. I hope to one day be able to resume her non-profit writing work on some level.

Create Me Free Links

• Original Home Page of Create Me Free, explaining what the organization does and why
• Links to zine distros: ESPA, Sweet Candy Library, Pink Poodle
• My comments about writing to prisoners at CCADP
• Create Me Free was mentioned as an author's favorite zine in this Mother Rebel interview
• Blog post from a former Create Me Free mentor