Featured Author Louis Bourgeois + Open Mic with 15 writers

The Journal of Expressive Writing is more than a publication. We aim to be an engaged and supportive community of writers and listeners. Giving our focused attention to each other’s voices, stories and writing is a generous, necessary act of humanity, repair and celebration.
On Thursday, February 27, 2025 at 7:00pm EST, our monthly OPEN MIC series will feature Louis Bourgeois—Executive Director of Mississippi Pr*son Writes Initiative, a non-profit which provides training in basic literacy and creative writing for incarcerated Mississippians and Editor in Chief at VOX PRESS, which just published Unit 29: Writing from Parchman Pr*son, a collection of writings from over 30 Mississippi inmates housed in the infamously brutal Unit 29 at Mississippi State Penitentiary, better known as Parchman Farm.
About Vox Press
VOX PRESS is a 501 (c) 3 arts organization based in Oxford, Mississippi. Its mission is to encourage, promote, and provide opportunities for the creation and public presentation of literature, art, and other creative works by individuals and groups traditionally neglected by the mainstream publishing industry, the academy, and other public venues and institutions.
Since its founding in 2004, VOX Press, Inc. has devoted itself to supporting neglected and underserved populations in Mississippi through education, literature, and the arts by publishing books by avant-garde authors, organizing and sponsoring readings, performances, and other special events featuring regional, minority, and avant-garde authors, musicians, and artists, and, by providing in-house educational services (remedial, secondary, and post-secondary) to inmates in the Mississippi Pr*son system. VOX’s Pr*son Writes Initiative provides training in basic literacy and creative writing for incarcerated Mississippians, has been the recipient of the prestigious Mississippi Humanities Council’s Educator of the Year Award, as well as the Mississippi Governor’s Volunteer of the Year Award.
More at: www.voxpress.org

About Unit 29: Writing from Parchman Pr*son
About Unit 29: Writing from Parchman Pr*son is a collection of writings from over 30 Mississippi inmates housed in the infamously brutal Unit 29 at Mississippi State Penitentiary, better known as Parchman Farm. The book is not a comfortable literary work, but rather a cry for help from deep within a monstrous and insatiable beast known as Unit 29, Parchman.
This book was made possible by the VOX Press and their educational outreach program, Mississippi Pr*son Writes Initiative, a small non-profit from Oxford Mississippi. Since 2002, VOX director Louis Bourgeois has a long history of working with incarcerated persons in writing workshops and began a creative writing class at Parchman Pr*son. Unit 29: Writing from Parchman Pr*son was created under Bourgeois’ instruction, with some mentions of him throughout the book by his students. Over the last ten years, three volumes of Mississippi inmate writing have been published through VOX. The explicit purpose of VOX Publishing and the Pr*son Writes Initiative is to provide a voice for the unheard and to publish marginalized writers.
Mississippi State Penitentiary, also known as Parchman Farm, is 20,000 acres with deep roots in American slavery. Originally a plantation, in the early 1900s Parchman got its beginnings functioning as a Pr*son farm utilizing inmates for hard labor. Today, it consists of mostly open fields, a few trees, ponds and seven different housing units. The Pr*son is located in the Mississippi delta region of Sunflower County on a desolate stretch of Highway 49. The book’s focus, Unit 29, is the largest unit of Parchman. It is surrounded by high razor-wired chain-link fences and four guard towers. Bourgeois describes the inside as chaotic, consisting of ten tiered zones with a caged-in Pr*son yard. The cells are dirty and there is a constant smell of marijuana, tobacco, and a general air of smoke. It is never silent, with the TV’s bolted to a center pillar always blaring and inmates shouting at each other across from their cells.
This book is not for the faint of heart. It is a shocking and tragic representation of life in one of America’s most notorious prisons. It contains heavy themes of suicide, death, drugs, and a plethora of other things. The material spans from narrative essays and poetry to talented pencil drawings and skilled rhyme schemes. The dark portrayals are mixed with hopeful sentiments; making the book full of complex and thought-provoking outlooks. It humanizes the writers and artists, making it capable to view them as individuals rather than a prisoner or a statistic.

Unit 29: Writings from Parchman Pr*son is available online at www.voxpress.org and

on Amazon.

About the Open Mic Portion:
In addition to our featured writers, 15 other pre-registered writers will read their work. Each of our contributing authors will have 3 minutes to read their best expressive writing, poetry, stories, free writing, non-fiction, personal essay, memoir, reflective essay, prose, contemplative discourse, and creative non-fiction.
The Journal's OPEN MIC series is FREE to attend and OPEN TO ALL, but you do need to Pre-Register through eventbrite to get the live Zoom link.
The Journal's OPEN MIC series is produced and hosted by Kelly DuMar.

Event Venue

Online