The Sentences That Create Us: Crafting a Writer’s Life in Prison by Caits Meissner (2022) Chicago: Haymarket Books, 339 pp.
Bibliographic record
Abstract
T o some, the art of writing is not new.To others, it is an unfathomable being.People within the system attempting to pursue the craft know that in a volatile environment like prison, there is no eff ective way to achieve this unless there is an instructor available or a mailroom-approved piece of literature -and this is where Caits Meissner's book comes in.The Sentences That Create Us: Crafting a Writer's Life in Prison is the latest installment from PEN America, one of the nation's largest organizations that advocates for literature, free expression and human rights.It is an overhaul of its revered predecessor, Handbook for Writers in Prison (PEN America, 2010).This new 2022 version bares the same creative writing concepts along with their imperative theoretical foundations -poetry, fi ction, nonfi ction screen writing, drama, rewriting /revision, grammar/ punctuation, and resources -while bringing its own concepts to the mix such as a chapter on journalism that contains its own writing techniques and guidance on pitching ideas to magazines and other outlets, as well as a chapter on graphics narrative detailing the art of comics as a storytelling medium.These chapters are a valuable addition to the existing entourage of lessons, giving insight to the reader on a visual art medium that can be used for self-expression and an ever-growing fi eld in the writing world that can become a working opportunity if the reader gives it dedication.Where this book really thrives, though, is in Meissner's ability to ensure that each section is weaved with the power of storytelling -the same power she wants the reader to learn.Each chapter is composed by a dedicated author who has interacted with the Criminal Justice System in some way (e.g.formerly incarcerated, currently incarcerated, or outside volunteer/ advocate), and they describe their selected writing category in an easyto-understand step-by-step process, allowing readers of any educational background to participate and give hope a chance.Yet the second part of the book, Crafting a Writer's Life in Prison, is the heart (and title) of this innovative work.This section contains detailed accounts on how the authors managed to be published inside prison, outside of prison, how they battle
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.003 | 0.002 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.005 | 0.006 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.003 |
| Research integrity | 0.002 | 0.004 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.018 | 0.008 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".