Louis Bourgeois is the Executive Director of Mississippi Prison 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 Prison, 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.

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 prison system. VOX’s Prison 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 about VOX Press, Inc. at: www.voxpress.org