The Incarcerated Writers Project
Who we are:
The Incarcerated Writers Project aims to engage with writers in prisons across the United States. Since 2018, our main goal has been to encourage your continued growth as a writer by reading and providing written feedback for your work.
If you’ve already submitted to us…
We haven’t forgotten about you! Because IWP sorts physical mail and provides written feedback, the Covid-19 pandemic temporarily stopped our operation. In the past two years, readers have been working through our backlog in an effort to get back on track.
If you have sent us your work between 2020 and now, feedback may still be on the way. You don’t need to wait for your work to be returned before sending other writing pieces to us— we welcome writers to submit to us more than once!
Feedback:
IWP’s readers consist of George Mason University students who study creative writing—we look to provide thoughtful line notes & short letters of observation to creative projects at any stage of completion.
Our team opens and reads each piece of mail we receive. IWP readers are provided a copy of your original work as it correlates with their area of study—meaning if you’re a poet, it’s likely you’ll receive feedback from a poet, essayists from essayists, and so on!
Because our readers consist of university students, our active reading periods are the spring and fall. You can submit work outside of these time periods, but it may take additional time to assign your work to an appropriate reader & send out their feedback.
Submission Guidelines:
We accept work in the following categories:
- Fiction (up to 5,000 words)
- Nonfiction (up to 5,000 words)
- Poetry (up to 5 pages)
*We cannot accept full manuscripts, but we can provide feedback on excerpts of larger pieces if the excerpt fits within our word/page count.
Along with your work, send along a short cover letter that includes:
- Your name
- Inmate ID
- Current facility
- Any information you would like to share about your relationship to writing
- What kind of feedback you would like to receive from us
*If you are set to be released within the next two years, please provide a future address where you can receive mail if you can.
If possible, please submit all work in the same envelope on standard size 8.5 x 11 paper. The editors at phoebe will return copies of your work with feedback from our readers. We may not be able to return the original copies of your work, so we recommend not sending us your only copy.
*We have physical copies of our guidelines that we can mail to you upon request.
Writers should send physical copies of their work to:
Incarcerated Writers Project
Phoebe Journal
George Mason University
The Hub Suite 1201, MSC5
4400 University Drive
Fairfax, VA 22030
Email incarceratedwritersproject@gmail.com with any questions you may have, or send a letter to the address above.
