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Centred on creative writing workshops in UK women’s prisons, this book explores what happens when imprisoned women begin to tell their own stories which are shaped by disempowerment and social exclusion.
Blending creative practice with critical analysis, it positions prison writing as both a mode of resistance and a means of reimagining the self. It brings long-overdue attention to the voices of incarcerated women, so often marginalised within the wider prison estate and overlooked in criminological research. This is an urgent, compelling contribution to prison studies, creative criminology and feminist approaches to writing and pedagogy.
'This book pays attention to the micrology of women’s lived experiences in critical, creative, poetic and arts-based ways and facilitates the creative writing, voices and stories of women in prison to speak, write and be heard. This book will make a difference – it is a tour de force!' Maggie O’Neill, University College Cork
'Prison researchers, educators and students alike will benefit immensely from the very practical insights Whitecross provides into the intricacies of using creative writing as intentional and relational research praxis in this masterfully written work.' Katherina Swirak, University College Cork
Foreword - Professor Maggie O'Neill
Preface – Towards Prison Writing as Narratives of Haunting
Part A: Women’s Imprisonment and Prison Writing
1. Context – Into the Mortuary of Keys
2. Seeking Women’s Prison Writing – an Encounter With the Empty Shelves of Time
Part B: Creative Writing Workshops in Prison
3. Creative Writing as Research Method – Writing and Reading Together
4. Positionality – Writer-Researcher
Part C: Critical Engagement With Women’s Prison Writing As Narratives of Haunting – a Writing Journey in Three Parts
5. Beginning the Journey – Maternal Connections
6. The Middle Journey – Crosscurrents in the Self As Site of the Struggle
7. Journey’s End – Ghosts
8. Conclusion – Journey Concludes to Continue