The story behind the crime
Published author, Wally Lamb, has always loved teaching. So when the York Correctional Institution in Connecticut in the USA appealed for volunteers to help combat the despair and defeat that had overtaken the female prison population in the wake of a series of successful and attempted suicides at the turn of the century, he responded with an offer of writing workshops.
But teaching writing in such a setting proved to be a considerable challenge; it took time and patience to penetrate the barriers the inmates raised. However, once the women let down their guard and found their voices, he was amazed at the courage and insights they exhibited. It became very evident that they had been imprisoned by abuse, rejection and their own self-destructive impulses long before they had entered the criminal justice system. They carried scars spanning their whole lives. The process he started not only unlocked their creativity but began a transformative journey of healing, and a pathway from despair to hope and triumph.
In Couldn’t Keep it to Myself, their stories have been collected together, and present a moving and powerful testament to the potential for writing – regardless of its literary merit – to enable vulnerable people to gain self-awareness and the motivation to change their lives for the better. As their mentor and facilitator Lamb kept his own editing of their work to a minimum in order to allow these authentic voices to tell it as it was for them, tweaking just enough to ensure clarity and pace and drama.
The end result makes shocking reading. These are experiences most of us only read of in fiction. Childhood rape. Poverty and abuse. Dysfunction on a grand scale. Rejection and discrimination. Cruelty and thuggery. Depression and full blown psychotic illness and addiction. Degradation and dehumanisation. Suicidal ideation and PTSD. Without exception, all the authors describe histories fraught with such horrors.
But, by encouragement and sensitive guidance, by publishing their collective stories, Lamb has unearthed the humanity in the lost and the lonely, the victims of drink and drugs and self-destructive habits and mental illness and society’s prejudices … and given them a voice.
… little by little, I came to understand who I was beneath all those bad habits and bad decisions.
… no one deserves to be talked down to and assumed valueless – no matter what their poisons.
I began writing about my life because it was the only way I knew how to keep my sanity in this place of confusion. My writing is a sanctuary in the middle of each day.
Writing gives me a sense of peace.
Writing’s helped me figure out who I am and who I want to be. My body’s still in prison but my spirit’s finally free.
Linguistic flair Painting the Darkness