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How did I start writing books about jail? A few months after I moved to Richmond to start my new job as an English professor at Virginia Commonwealth University, I found myself living near a crime scene. It was my first time. So, I really started to think, what has to happen to a person in order for crime to become plausible, maybe even inevitable? Further self-talk led me into a wager with myself. If I were to ask people in jail to write the story of how they got there, wouldn’t they want to change the narrative. Wouldn’t they want to write their way out of the story that led them to jail. I bet they would. In fact, I bet some are already primed to realize the truth but just don’t have the support or the structure to pursue it in writing. I was right! I just didn’t know was how much hearing their stories would change mine.