CBU

SOUTH CAROLINA DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS
BROAD RIVER CORRECTIONAL INSTITUTION
CHARACTER BASED UNIT

CWI
Correctional
Writer's
Initiative (C)

CBU Scribe

Creative NonFiction

The Writer must be in it; he can't be to one side of it, even. He has to be endangered by it. His own attitudes have to be tested in it. The best work that anybody ever writes is the work that is on the verge of embarrassing him, always.

--Arthur Mikker

The Correctional Writer's Initiative (CWI), was founded in 2009, and has now went National as a non-profit with support from Hamilton College, Cornell University, M.I.T., and other schools and literary journals.
CBU Scribe is a satellite program of CWI, designed for non-profit use within a Character-Based Unit (CBU); and currently boasts nearly two dozen published writers. If you are holding this introductory packet, then you are on your way to becoming a writer--though you may already be one--and just need a formalizing of your craft.
This semester will cover:

1. Introduction to Creative NonFiction
2. Finding Your Story: The Personal Essay
3. Finding Your Story: The Prison Memoir
4. Molding the Narrative Arc
5. Introspective Narration
6. Cliffhangers and Page Turners
7. Character Psychology
8. Dialogue Strategies
9. Story Design
10. Putting it All Together
11. Editing and Revision
12. Getting Published

You will be assigned a list of prompts, for essays that will be graded and critiqued--with their final drafts sent to colleges for possible publication.

J.E. Mahaffey
CWI Instructor

CBU Educational
Coordinator

Correctional Writer's Initiative
Instructor: J.E. Mahaffey

PRISONER EXPRESS

Class Prompts:

Photo prompts--each photo on the right is your prompt, write fiction or non-fiction in relation to the photo, use your imagination. Title your work, and double space, with a word count of 500-750 (2 to 4 page; single sided) with a slug line at the top of additional page.

Due dates for class will be two weeks before each P.E. deadline.

Upcoming Picture Themes:

[image of a bridge]
Due 5/1/18

[image of a person with head in hands]
Due 6/1/18

[image of trees]
Due 7/1/18

[image of a horse and person in water]
Due 8/1/18

[image of someone lying on their back]
Due 9/1/18

Correctional Writer's Initiative
Instructor: J.E. Mahaffey

PRISONER EXPRESS

Class prompts:

Theme topics--each topic should be written about as non-fiction, and in some way connected to prison, or something that led to prison. A, flash memoir, or slice-of-life piece. Double space, with a word count of 500-750 (2 to 4 page; single sided) with a slug line at the top of additional page.

DUE DATE --- THEME TOPIC
4/18/18 --- Flowers
5/16/18 --- Emerging from the fog
6/13/18 --- Weddings
7/1//18 --- Miracles
8/15/18 --- Magic in the Air
9/12/18 --- Ancestors
10/17/18 --- Jealousy

THE SUN

The Sun prompts may be about prison, or any life experience.
Same format and length.

DUE DATE --- TOPIC
4/18/18 --- Men and Women
5/16/18 --- Moving On

Correctional Writer's Initiative
Instructor: J.E. Mahaffey

THE MARSHALL PROJECT

Class assignment:

The Marshall Project is a non-profit news organization committed to shedding light on prisons and criminal justice issues.

Requesting: first person writing from those inside the prisons--documenting the prison experience, to challenge societal assumptions about the prison life. The story must be non-fiction, and from the writer's own experience(s). A story that needs to be told.

NOT REQUESTING: theoretical essays, prison ideologies, essays about life before prison, fiction, or poetry.

Length: 500-2000 words.

DUE DATE
6/13/18

Writers write, and writing professionally involves deadlines, lots of deadlines--and keeping up with those deadlines. There are no extensions in the real world! It is due when it is due, or you don't get paid.

CWI teaches writers--in addition to craft--the importance of discipline. Get yourself a calendar, make not of EVERY deadline, and be prepared. Do that; and you will become a writer of merit. A small handful of CWI members are already working directly with their own New York based editor ... and this was achieved after semesters of completed assignments, and we give praise to those few writers carrying out their dreams. It's not easy.

The instructor is certified, with a diploma in Creative Writing and over three hundred publications to his name. Students are given an MFA-style course that is supplemented with experience, and methods that have already been proven effective.