If you’ve already begun reading the book, take a few minutes to jot down ideas or images that are interesting to you. Why do those ideas stand out? What makes you decide you want to read one chapter first?
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Kinds of writing
Prison Voices contains poetry, narratives (personal stories), and fiction (stories from the imagination). It contains interviews with the authors of each chapter, and also makes use of photos.
Are there genres, or different kinds of writing that you particular like? Some people like to read novels or fiction, for example, because they enjoy imagining different ways of living, or reading about other kinds of relationships, or families or people or places that appear in those stories.
Other people like non-fiction (narratives and biographies – stories of real people’s lives, news articles, travel books and different kinds of magazines), because they like learning about other parts of the world, or learning about current events, or sports, or cooking or other things.
Poems offer different ways to express ideas without always saying things directly. Songs, too, express ideas and feelings in different ways.
As you read through the writing in Prison Voices, think about how the writers choose to tell their stories – some use poetry, some use narrative. The interviews also give readers more information about each of the writers and their lives.
Think about your own life – something that’s important, something about the place you grew up, something about people you know and care about, or something about an ordinary day in your life. Start writing – you can make a list of people you like, and why you like them. Describe what you did this morning. Write about something you like to do, or something you don’t like to do. Just start writing. What do you want to say about yourself right now?